Line
by SinisterApollo
Summary: For some reason SHIELD believes that Keigo actually knows what he's doing. Which says more about the organization than himself, honestly. But Keigo is nothing if not adaptable. He survives Mizuho on a daily basis; this should be a cake-walk. Red velvet, marble frosting and all. Or you know... not that. Sequel to Hook (formerly known as Agent 147) and more frequently updated on AO3.
1. BFO

**Hi! So this is the _sequel_ to the previous story I had written called Hook (which used to be Agent 147 like, 5 minutes ago). Since I'm more frequent on AO3 now I forget to update here sorz. But the last chapter of Hook has been uploaded (as a reviewer kindly reminded me to do so lol) and here is the sequel? Once again, I'm very grateful for all of you to have read my stories but also... please come on its so much easier to navigate!**

* * *

It was _really fucking cold_ in early January.

Still, Keigo decided to walk home all the way from Central Tokyo, which was an hour and a half - minimum - by foot. He could deal with his balls freezing as long as he got time to figure out what the fuck was going on. He shook his head to clear the latent dizziness from the drugs and chronologically recollected all events in the past 24 hours. So, facts:

Kisuke and him had made a deal earlier that day that Keigo had begrudgingly accepted. Initially, he wanted to remain on SHIELD's radar to continue to train and keep an eye out for any and all malicious things they planned to do with his information and their frighteningly competent technology against non-corporeal monsters. But Urahara had, under no certain terms, reminded him of the consequences his previous recklessness had caused, resulting in a guilty-as-hell, angry teenager agreeing to stay out of it all together.

Disappointing as it may have been, this decision felt slightly relieving too. Not having to carry the weight of his giant fuckups on his shoulders anymore and letting Urahara take care of it was something he realised was the obvious solution to this... predicament. The idea of leaving SHIELD felt more and more reaffirming, right up until the shinigami told him that he was gonna drug Keigo for a solid 8 hours and fake-kidnap him.

Another screaming match later, Keigo ended up lying down on his couch, with a defeated "Ugh, fine. Do it."

"Remember, you never came to me," Kisuke had said in his trademark sing-song voice. Keigo huffed.

"I knoooow, just get on with it already."

Keigo was out cold the next second, and had woken up in SHIELD medical apparently, someplace close to their boring front of an office building. After the initial panic at his new surroundings combined with the cotton-like feeling in his brain (and goddamn Kisuke, what the fuck), Keigo learned to school his face into something more believable for a scared-to-shit fifteen year old kid (which. Not hard, he was a jumpy motherfucker at the best of times) and played along with anything Penta-man had to say.

Of course it lasted a total of 20 seconds before Fujikawa decided that Keigo was eligible for Spy-School Bachelorette out of _no-fucking-where_ with his "viable candidacy" and "you will be an asset to our organization, Keigo," and dammit Keigo _really_ wished to have not caught that trap for what it obviously was. For a second he had to remind himself that he wasn't supposed to be with SHIELD anymore and refrained from immediately accepting like a hungry dog with a bone. Sometimes, Keigo admits, he's pathetic for wanting so desperately to be a part of something bigger than him.

Okay, most of the time.

But he's never been in cahoots with anyone before okay? It would be nice to feel like he was in cahoots once in a while.

Still, after his outright refusal followed by calling SHIELD out on their bluff, Keigo was told that he was allowed to go home and that SHIELD would no longer interfere in his life anymore. Ha. Right. Keigo didn't believe that for a second, suspecting that SHIELD might be tailing him right now - what with not having given him a ride home this time; it seemed like their hospitality lasted about as long as his usefulness, fucking assholes. He knew that going to Urahara's place immediately and risk showing his hand.

He still had a solid half hour to get home, so Keigo didn't worry.

And it was fucking late, Urahara would probably just leave him stranded in the cold anyway.

On his way to Karakura, he stopped by a 7-Eleven to get something to eat - recalling that he skipped all meals today - and purchased a pack of soda for his sister to keep her from asking too many questions. Now that the holidays were almost over, his parents decided to pack up and leave for god-knows-how-long for work, so he didn't have to worry about them at the moment.

It also meant that he would have to go back to school and try to be normal again. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth, already missing being occupied with secrets that were his to keep. Sure, it was stressful and he constantly felt guilty for giving his friends away to a bunch of spies, but Keigo had felt like he was actually doing something good with his life, like he was looking at the bigger picture. He felt... important, and it hurt like a bitch to think that he won't be doing that anymore. Fortunately, it mostly cleared his conscience from lies and betrayal and even if he wanted to, Keigo literally could not come clean to any of his friends because the the pile of NDAs he had signed months ago.

It was going to be alright, he would work it out.

He reached Karakura in a daze, just in time for his fingers to turn into icicles. No amount of blowing on them made them any less frigid. He didn't have gloves, but he had a thick jacket that he apparently wore before he was "attacked". He briefly thought he should take it off and burn the damn thing, fully knowing that it's bugged somewhere, but the wind picked up suddenly and he figured he might as well head home before setting the offended article of clothing on fire to warm his hands.

Mizuho was making dinner when he rang the door bell.

"The hell have you been?" she snapped as she opened the door. Keigo gave her a meek shrug, rubbing the back of his head with his hand. Ouch. Cold.

"Lost track of the time, sorry. I brought soda?" he held up the six-pack with crossed fingers behind his back.

Mizuho snatched the pack and let him in reluctantly. "You're lucky mom and dad aren't home," then, "Ew, is this grapefruit? You know I hate grapefruit!" she thwacked him on the head lightly before walking back to the kitchen and finishing up.

"It's half-grapefruit, half-raspberry!"

His sister simply scoffed, but Keigo could see amusement coloring her expression, "Set the damn table."

They ate dinner in relative silence, Mizuho too busy on her phone and Keigo too hungry and tired to speak up. Which was odd, considering he spend most of the day snoozing away his problems. When it got to dessert (ice-cream with _fruit_. It was almost like his sister was taking revenge. Oh, she definitely was) Mizuho finally cleared her throat.

"So... you never expressed any interest in Kunieda Ryo before," Keigo choked on his ice-cream. Mizuho smiled like the sick-o she was. "And suddenly, I hear - not from my own brother's mouth, mind you - that she's shacking up a guy with startlingly close similarities to you."

Keigo looked at her in horror, "Ew! Mizuho that's not- I can't believe you just- gross. You don't have to say something like that!"

Mizuho leaned back in her chair, thoroughly enjoying this. Keigo hated her with a passion, "Oh? Now you're being a gentleman about it?"

"It's not... it's not like that-" we aren't like that, Keigo was almost about to say, but even to him that seemed like an idiot move at losing a perfect alibi. If only he'd stop blushing because him and Ryo- no. _God, no._ For the first time in forever, Keigo celebrated being celibate- "We're just- just..."

"Mmhm... just what?"

He was going to kill Mizuho.

"It's... it's new. We're just. Testing the waters or whatever," Keigo mentally apologized to the one person he truly regretted dragging into this. He had so much grovelling to do. At this rate, Ryo might just out him. "So drop it, okay?" he tried to sound pissed, to get her off his back. To his surprise, it worked.

"You're serious about this, huh," Mizuho seemed to contemplate something and Keigo left her to it. He simply sighed in defeat and started counting the seconds before Kunieda Ryo physically throttles him.

"I... yeah, sure. Whatever."

Keigo ended up disposing the jacket off by the recyclables outside the building and frisked himself three times before entering the apartment again. The paranoia didn't quite go away - hasn't really left him since fucking Christmas - and he turned to look around for any evidence of SHIELD in the living room where Kisuke had arranged their "meeting". Keigo still could not for the life of him identify a bug from a piece of lint, so he gave up frustrated, tired and still cold from the walk and made it to bed.

Bear in mind that Keigo is a talker by nature. It is his default setting and fine - yeah - he mumbles to himself sometimes, sue him. Night times were the best for reflecting and discussing pop culture with thin air, but Keigo had to beat himself into a habit of shutting the fuck up in his own home after signing the contract with those two-faced boots in case he said something truly incriminating (his mistake, he knows. Relax about it, conscience!), which frankly, sucked ass.

Keigo had made his bed, not knowing it was infested with goddamn rats, and now he has to lie in it.

Whatever, he'll deal with this tomorrow, after yelling at Kisuke some more. It was surprisingly therapeutic, in retrospect.

Keigo fell into a fitful sleep with roars echoing in his head, and a flash of orange hair and cracked skies behind his eyes.

* * *

The next morning had exhaustion mostly leaving his bones and a text message from Mizuiro for an impromptu meeting at the arcade. The Squad seemed more inclined to invite him to their super-secret group hangouts nowadays. Kojima especially wanting to include Keigo in everything, as if trying to get back in his good books or something. It didn't matter anymore, Keigo stopped keeping track. It wasn't worth it.

He wondered how his friend would behave when he realised that Keigo wasn't going to be too busy for him anymore; whether he would resort back to acting like the aloof jerk who hung out with Keigo out of sheer necessity than anything else. Keigo knew that if he hadn't lost his temper at the whole group post-Aizen, they would still be treating him like a second-class citizen and pretending there was nothing wrong with that. Which - to be fair - in their eyes they probably thought they were perfectly fine friends to Keigo, so he didn't begrudge them that. And Keigo was far from fessing up his feelings about the whole matter just for them to dismiss it anyway. So if anger was how he had to get through them then, well, that was going to be a problem for Future Keigo. Still, it took Keigo time to understand that Ichigo and Co., exclusive as they were, weren't the most mentally stable bunch out there, for good reason too, so he could deal.

They were assholes, but they were _his_ assholes.

Either way, since it was the last day of holidays, Keigo agreed to their little 'bro-session' to be able to lead as much of a normal life as he could, now that he didn't have to visit SHIELD every so often. He still had to visit Kisuke and tell him about their last-minute recruitment, and what it all meant for Keigo. Keigo didn't really have a plan, brain feeling too rung out from yesterday's roofie to strategize, so he might as well improv his way out of this problem.

Worked out decently enough for him so far.

Mizuho had a pot of coffee ready in the kitchen, and whilst Keigo isn't a heavy coffee drinker - Red Bull For Life - he poured himself a generous mug and practically inhaled the beverage, stumbling his way to the dining table. His sister looked up from her textbook next to the plate and raised an eyebrow.

"I have questions." she said.

Keigo yawned and held up a finger before draining the mug and putting it on the table with a thump. "Shoot."

"What, exactly, have you been doing these past months?"

Keigo dug into his toast very slowly, thankful that she waited for his coffee to finish or else he would have choked. He wouldn't have been able to come back from that.

"Care to elaborate?" Answering with more questions, he'd seen the scientists do this every time he tried asking more about SHIELD. Bando did it too.

Keigo kind of missed Bando.

 _Wait no. Bad thoughts, Keigo. Stop._

Mizuho leaned forward confidently.

"Ever since you got caught up in that earthquake, you've been spending less time at home - like you should have-" she looked at him scathingly for a moment, "-and more time... elsewhere. And you're suddenly dating someone, but you're not always with her. Not with friends either, I checked with that Kojima kid. Idiot tried to hit on me again," she huffed and this time Keigo coughed into his toast, trying to erase the sudden image of his sister and- ew- Mizuiro from his hea- _ew ew ew_.

He brought the mug to his mouth again and made a face when he realised it was empty. Mizuho handed him a glass of water that he would have been grateful for if he didn't suspect her for pouring some sort of truth serum in it. She was being awfully patient, and Keigo wasn't used to that. He was used to her yelling at top volume followed by a smack to his head with the excuse of "tought love" on her lips.

Tough love was bullshit, Keigo needed a goddamn hug like 90% of the time.

"I didn't know you cared," Keigo said as plainly as he could. He was very obviously deflecting, but it seemed to work its charm. Mizuho's frown deepened like when she was about to lose her shit. Keigo had hit a nerve, apparently.

Huh.

"You'd know if I didn't," she snapped back, "Fine, don't tell me. If you get into shit I'm not helping you out." With that, Mizuho went back to reading her textbook.

Keigo didn't say anything, even though he wanted to. He had no idea what the hell got her so mad about this, since she had never been in his business before. Didn't care, really, unless he got really sick or brought home a hot bald guy for her to fawn over.

He cleaned his stuff and moved on with his day.

* * *

Keigo met Mizuiro a bit before noon outside the arcade closest to school, and in turn, closest to Urahara's shop. The latter looked up from his phone and smiled which. Also incredibly weird and disarming at the same time. Maybe Keigo was still in his drug induced sleep and dreaming up all this?

"Mr. Asano," he greeted.

"Please stop hitting on my sister," Keigo replied. Mizuiro stopped short, the beginnings of a blush forming on his face, either from Keigo's statement or the cold, he couldn't tell. "Unless you love her enough to shave off your head, I don't even want to _think_ about you two in the same room," he added with a gagging motion.

"I wasn't trying to- I wasn't-" Mizuiro stammered - Keigo had to take a moment to realign his entire perception of his friend because Kojima Mizuiro just fucking stammered.

"Dude," Keigo interrupted as he pushed the door of the arcade open, "Do you _actually_ have a crush on her?"

"What? No!" Kojima sounded appalled, and rightfully disgusted by the idea but that didn't make sense because just three seconds ago he had stammered- "I just told her to give me a call if she finds out where you are. That's the only time we talked!"

"Did you say it in The Voice?"

"What voice? I don't have a Voice."

"You do, you use it every time your introduce yourself to any woman above 18. I call it your 'fuck me' voice."

Mizuiro made a strangled sound and Keigo snorted, delighted to see him trip over himself. God, Keigo had never once managed to one-up this guy, and here he was. Basking in the glory of seeing Kojima wrong-footed and blushing.

"I do _not_."

"Sure whatever. Now what do you wanna play? I'm feeling some Sonic." Keigo patted him on the shoulder and made his way to the counter.

SHIELD or no, he was gonna abuse his right of gaming until his fingers hurt.

They went for lunch about three hours later, when Mizuiro lost 4 consecutive times at air-hockey and later decided that Keigo wasn't good enough for DDR.

Rude.

Keigo cited craving old, hard candy for dessert in revenge and Mizuiro relented by dragging him to Urahara's with another startling, if not slightly unwarranted smile. He's not used to Mizuiro smiling okay? God knows what's gotten into him.

The store looked just as unassuming and mildly creepy as it did the previous times (read: two days ago) Keigo had visited it. Still, trepidation rose in his chest at the thought of confronting Kisuke about the very real, very volatile issue of spies trying to legitimately, actually hire Keigo. The lightness from the arcade had disappeared and Keigo tried his best to not show it on his face. Kojima was browsing the selection of weird shit (a wooden cherub and a bright pink crowbar from the 60's) Kisuke kept for muggles like them outside the store, seemingly unaware of the emotions roiling in Keigo's gut.

The door was slid ajar, with sounds of activity inside - followed by a high pitched shriek that had the duo hurrying into the store, Mizuiro standing behind Keigo who had grabbed the decorated crowbar and was ready to attack just about anything. If it was SHIELD, then his gig was probably up and he was screwed anyway.

Turns out it wasn't SHIELD, but a plush toy of a yellow bird in a blue cape hiding behind another green toy looking at the spirit of a dead person.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

"Why the fuck." said Keigo.

"Oh, you see me," the dead person said, "Good to know," with that, it just... glided through Keigo and disappeared into the frigid air. Keigo turned back to see the plush toys, now accompanied by Tessai and the man of the hour, Kisuke himself, rearranging the topped chair on the side.

"Keigo! What brings you to my shop?" Kisuke chirped, eyes hard and searching. Keigo tilted his chin slightly towards his best friend, hoping he'd get the message.

"He wanted some of that hard candy you kept for the flu? Keigo's weird like that." Kojima shrugged.

"Hey!" Keigo complained, simply for the sake of it. "That's some quality flu candy," he lied. The candy tasted like crap.

Kisuke chuckled, "He's right, it's Karakura's number one!"

"Why isn't is branded then?"

"No name is good enough for it," Kisuke shot back easily. "It's up in storage, I can take you there-" he motioned Keigo towards the inside of the shop. "Tessai, why don't you show out guest the new range of phone covers we got last week?"

Keigo soundlessly followed Kisuke, not waiting to hear an answer as they entered the guest room again. Keigo diligently held out his arms and Kisuke checked him thoroughly before sitting on the futon.

"You shouldn't be here," he stated, voice dropping to a low lilt.

Keigo decided screaming at Kisuke could wait. They had limited time before Kojima got suspicious. This whole thing was too risky in the first place, if SHIELD was, in fact, following him still.

"They tried to recruit me." he said.

Kisuke looked confused, "They already had you. I don't understand?"

"They had me as an unofficial informant, now they want me at SHIELD academy, as an official student. Agent. Thing." Keigo tried to explain, "Did you know they would do this?"

"I should have expected it, honestly. But no, I did not. It would make sense though," Kisuke answered after a moment.

"Why?"

"Leverage. They think you don't have anyone on your side, they don't now about your affiliation with me, so if they tricked you into working for them-"

"They can use me as leverage against you." Keigo concluded, "I still don't see that working out though. Even if I said yes, you still can choose to turn away from this."

"Not if they threaten your life."

"That's never stopped you before," Keigo knew it was the wrong thing to say the second it came out of his mouth. He had already explicitly voiced his issues about baiting teenagers to Kisuke, thinking the man didn't care. The uneasy silence that followed after made Keigo wonder if he actually gave a fuck about what happened to him, or if he was planning something else for Keigo.

It was probably the latter.

"I told you Keigo, I'm on your side."

Or, you know. Not.

Keigo changed the subject. "What should I do then? Do you think they'd give up?"

Urahara huffed, "I doubt it. If anything, they may try making their deal more lucrative, or try using more... unsavory methods early to persuade you into working for them."

"But... why? Why do they want to recruit me? I've already signed NDAs, I couldn't tell anyone anything even if I wanted to."

"Only you can answer that; you've been with SHIELD for about two months, you tell me... did they show any desire to keep you there longer?"

Keigo thought hard and came up blank. "Nope, if anything I think they were trying to get rid of me the second I was no longer of use. They ghosted me for the whole of Christmas remember? It must have been something you said. What did you tell them anyway?"

"I said what we had discussed: that they will use the information I give them and nothing more, or else I'd wipe out their entire database." _And minds,_ he didn't say, but Keigo understood nonetheless.

Keigo shuddered at the thought of someone having so much power. He also wondered if Kisuke could do that with the spirit magic mojo; that sounded incredibly handy.

"Perhaps they want you because you seemed... eligible for candidacy? It's not out of the possibility that you may have actually impressed them." Keigo scoffed and shook his head in disagreement. There was no way he was meant for any of this. His past failures made that glaringly obvious. "No, but listen- you entered this place with a hand keeping your friend from danger the second you heard Ririn scream, and a crowbar- that you're still holding, by the way-" Keigo yelped and dropped the crowbar with a loud thud. The noise echoed throughout the shop. Shit. "You've learned something. Maybe you're both leverage and an asset. If they can't use you to get to me, they still have a worthy candidate."

"Worthy candi- Are you _insane_? I'm fifteen, no intelligence agency is allowed to do that. Right?"

"You did say it was an academy, a school of some sorts."

"Well... yeah. They have this brochure-"

"They have _brochures?_ "

"I know right?" Keigo sighed. "Can't you take care of it? Tell them you figured it out on your own?"

"You will have to give me a week minimum before I can go storming into their headquarters to make it believable."

"I'll take it man... just. Get them off my back, please."

Urahara nodded, standing up and leading them back to the main shop slowly, "I will do my best. Please be careful in the mean time and send me this brochure as soon as possible. I can have Kon get it from you."

Keigo made a noise of affirmation before facing Mizuiro, Tessai and the two animate toys again.

"Where the hell have you been?" Kojima was being swamped by all kinds of accessories for phones to old fashioned neck scarves.

"Sorry, they were too many varieties. Keigo here couldn't pick! So we settled for licorice." Kisuke handed him a bag full of licorice hard candy out of no-fucking-where before ushering them outside.

Gross.

Kisuke was a dick.

Kojima's face mirrored his sentiment. They bade the shop good bye, internally glad that Tessai hadn't made them stay for rice cakes. Keigo felt like if he spent any more time there he'd go insane.

"By the way," Mizuiro began, "Arisawa texted me that her, Inoue and Sado are at some new ice-cream place at the town square. I know you said this shitty candy was your dessert, but it's not mine. You up for it?"

"It's winter."

"When has that stopped you before? Besides, they have waffles too."

Keigo thought about it. He could really do with some real dessert right about now. Instead of the garbage he just put in his mouth.

"God, yes."

Mizuiro chuckled and slung his arm around Keigo. "Let's go then."

What the fuck?

"Um." Keigo decided it best to shut up.

* * *

They made it outside the ice-cream place in record time to see Orihime, Tatsuki and Chad taking a seat at a large table inside the parlour. Just then, Keigo heard someone shout his name.

He looked up sharply, eyes narrowing and searching the crowd. His hands were clenched into a fist on his side and his legs just about ready to bolt.

"Keigo!" the voice was feminine and coming from his right. Keigo turned to see a gorgeous woman with the biggest fucking boobs waving a hand and running towards him in a way no person with boobs ever has. Mizuiro looked just as surprised, if not more, at turned to him questioningly.

"Self-defence," came the automatic answer. He didn't know her, but she knew him. It wasn't hard to figure out who this might be, since Keigo was just about the most unpopular guy ever. "Why don't you go inside, I'll join you in a few minutes."

Mizuiro raised his hands in surrender and relented, walking backwards and mouthing "good luck" before turning away. The woman reached him just as Kojima was out of sight and beamed.

"It's so nice to finally meet you!" she said, obviously keeping up a facade. Keigo didn't know what her game was but something didn't feel right. He was unarmed, untrained while she obviously was, what with a skirt that _should not_ be worn in this weather (or in the summer, it was sinfully short), and a large handbag and innocent features, petite body and- did he mention ridiculous breasts? She was tailor made for Keigo and he didn't trust that one bit. Her smile dimmed a bit when they were close enough and she drew out her hand for him to shake on, more professionally.

"My name is Tagua Kimi, and I was sent by SHIELD to check up on you," she introduced herself. "We wanted to know how you were doing after... you know," she shrugged with another smile, her eyes crinkling at the corners. Her hair was light brown, almost like his but infinitely softer and her lips were painted a light-peach, matching her coat. She was absolutely stunning.

And she was lying.

This wasn't SHIELD's style, not to him, not after yesterday. Not ever.

But she knew about him.

 _She wasn't SHIELD and she fucking knew about him._


	2. Coup de main

Everything Keigo did from that point onward can be rolled up into one giant rubberball of mistakes.

First, he immediately responded to Kimi WhatsHerName by muttering "Oh, shit" _right_ at her face.

Then, suddenly panicked, his eyes flickered very obviously to his friends inside the parlour - all of whom were looking back questioningly and inadvertently drawing attention to themselves.

Then, in even _more_ panic, Keigo decided that the best course of action would be to run the fuck away.

In hindsight - which came exactly 5 seconds after his feet took control of his hind-brain and dragged him almost a block over - this was one of those decisions that would forever haunt him in the middle of the night just when he's about to sleep out of sheer fucking humiliation, if nothing else. He just about heard her "damn it, get him!" to realise that not only were his suspicions correct on her identity, but also that she wasn't alone.

Just his fucking luck.

Keigo had no idea who was following him, too scared to look back and unconsciously slow down. It could have been an entire fucking troop, tanks and guns blazing and he wouldn't be able to tell you; his ears were ringing with the roar of the wind and the bustle of the crowd that he pushed past without consideration, and, in a split second of subconscious decision-making, swerved left towards a plaza that he recalled sold wholesale stuff.

The barely functional part of his brain supplied that he _could_ easily lose them in a place full of cold, angry middle-aged women if he planned this out smartly. As he stumbled into the store, Keigo rebutted that thought by reminding his brain that he was a planning nightmare on a good day. Quickly scanning the open area, he rushed towards the free sample stalls; it was the most crowded location thus far. Heart in his throat, Kiego made past the bustle of shoppers, mind on complete overdrive and only instinct carrying his body through the end of aisle. Despite the general noisiness of the place, Keigo could hear fast, heavy footsteps somewhere behind him that he could only guess were his assailants.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit!

He took another sharp left, ending up in the grocery section and hurried up the escalators to the first floor. The crowd on the ramp visibly jostled at his disruption but Keigo soldiered on, uncaring and turning a blind eye to their loud protests. His palms were sweaty and he was panting out loud despite not feeling even close to tired; too amped up on adrenaline and fear. His eyes darted for anyone suspicious in the mean time, fully knowing that whoever they were, weren't far away.

Fuck. Keigo couldn't find anyone suspicious, they all just looked like _people._ He sucked at this. Cursing under his breath he ran through the child-care aisle filled with toy stores and a giant fun pit. He passed the play area full of snot-nosed brats running about, causing a goddamn ruckus that could be distracting enough for Keigo to get away from whatever he was trying to get away from. Biting his lip nervously, the teenager stopped in front of a bouncy castle and side-stepped the employee at the booth next to it as casually as someone with the obvious body jitters could. When said employee turned to handle a particularly impudent child, Keigo quickly slipped through and managed to hide in a corner behind the castle. It was a horrible hiding place, Not-SHIELD could be 5 feet away from him and he wouldn't even _realise_ until it was too late. But it gave him some time to figure out how in Aizen's Moth-Faced Name he was gonna get out without getting killed. He took a deep breath and tried to steady his trembling hands, wiping sweat off his face, eyes frantically darting for anyone holding a rifle.

Ha. Tough luck.

Kimi Whatever, though, he might recognise. He kept an eye out for her while trying to press himself further into the corner.

Keigo fished out his phone and called Urahara. The call went straight to voicemail.

"Kisuke you useless piece of-"

The words died in his mouth as he came face-to-face with a bug-eyed toddler staring at him with his fingers in his mouth.

 _Okay, calm now, Keigo. Just smile and make up a stupid-ass excuse for the stupid-ass kid._ Keigo gave a tight smile and a weak wave to him. Children, he could deal with; they didn't go about stalking teenagers with government secrets right?

"-Mommy!"

Or not.

Keigo was going to die, right here on the kid's floor of a goddamn mall.

"Mommy! Mooooom! There'sa-"

"Shh! Hey, hey no no no _hush_. Hush now." Keigo tried placating the kid who now looked like he was about to throw a fit right here, in the middle of a fucking chase for Keigo's life. He scourged his pockets for some coins, "Here," he said, handing out 500 Yen, "Go get yourself something to eat or whatever just. I'm gone okay? Gone." With that, Keigo slipped out of the corner and fled the kids area.

Man, fuck those loud-mouthed devils.

Keigo went another two floors up, slowly growing tired with the stress and exhaustion. He shucked off his jacket, too warm with the combination of the heater and the chase, and discretely pushed it in a woman's giant shopping bag. One man's trash and all that eh?

His mind was a mess of haywire thoughts, questions of who and what and why circling his head as he tried to make sense of the situation. Keigo briefly wondered if he over-reacted when he ran away from that lady. His friends could attest to his tendency to do that. Maybe she was a friendly.

But then she would have no reason to run after him right?

Keigo nervously twirled the phone in his hands and got off on the second last floor - the food court - wondering if it would be a terrible idea to hide in the bathroom. Spy-training would have been pretty fucking useful right now. Keigo needed to get out of here _stat_ and hide somewhere safe until this thing blew over. Kisuke wasn't picking up, so Keigo wasn't sure whether he'd even be in the store if he somehow managed to flee the plaza. Swallowing heavily, Keigo thumbed Fujikawa's number for a few moments. Then, deciding to not waste any more time, he pressed the 'call' button.

"-eye's on him, 3 o'clock, I'm locking in-"

Fuck! There was someone on his left. Keigo turned to see a man in a black hoodie looking right at him and a frown on his face and-

Okaaaaay. He needed to run. Like, now.

So Keigo did, phone clutched to his chest as he zipped past food-trays and hangry shoppers alike.

 _"Mr Asano?"_ the voice on the phone answered. Keigo almost crashed into a family of five at that. He brought the phone to his ear, panting heavily.

"Are your people following me?" He asked shrilly, looking for a fire-exit. It was the shortest way down without him having to turn around. Risky as hell, but Keigo was running out of options. He heard the man's voice behind him and scrunched his eyes, "Shit!"

 _"No we're no- What's going on? I'm locking into your location."_

"Some people who are not SHIELD are running after me and I don't know why." Keigo yelped and barged through the doors of the fire-escape in a corner, barreling downwards two steps at a time, scared shitless. Fujukawa's voice was telling him something but Keigo couldn't make them out; his steps were too loud in the empty staircases, followed by another set of heavier ones right on his tail.

"Asano Keigo-" The male voice huffed, barely an arm's length away, "We just want to talk-" Keigo ducked instinctively as the hand behind him reached out to meet air. Should Keigo stop and listen? No. He couldn't right? He didn't know, Keigo wasn't a goddamn spy- fuck fuck fuck there was a person on the floor below him. Shit. It was Kimi.

"Keigo," she said calmly as he glided to a stop, backing up into a corner.

( _Rookie move, kiddo,_ Bando's voice echoed in his head).

"There's no need to be afraid, we just want to talk." From here, Keigo could see that she looked older, her face had stern lines, with a certain seriousness to them. There was nothing bubbly or nonthreatening about her. She sounded weird, she _smelled_ weird. 'Kimi' raised her arms to her shoulders, "I'm unarmed, see? Just a chat, and we'll let you go."

It was something similar to what SHIELD has said to him all those months ago. Except Keigo didn't have any proof apart from the dreaded feeling in his gut that told him that these weren't the good guys.

SHIELD wasn't a 100% either, despite their apparent honourable intentions. But these guys _definitely_ weren't.

The guy behind him stopped a couple of feet away from him, seemingly on 'Kimi's' orders, judging by the look she shot him. He was probably restraining himself from smacking Keigo unconscious.

Keigo gulped.

Fujikawa's voice rang through the sudden silence.

 _"Don't say anything. If they want to talk they can book an appointment."_

Kimi's eyes traveled to the phone before she slowly opened her palm to it.

"Is this your handler?" she asked carefully, face neutral. Keigo didn't say anything - mouth filled with cotton and stomach heavy with lead. "I'd like to talk to him. Keigo, can you ask him if I can talk to him?"

 _"Not-"_

"Just to set up a meeting, like he said. You have my word. We're not your enemies, Keigo-"

They were on the third floor. The railing was unguarded. The guy behind him was mostly likely prepared to hurt Keigo if he made any sudden movements. It was a _three-story drop._

Fuck it.

Keigo grabbed the railing and leaped over it.

His shoulder hit the metal bar on the way down, and he fell ungracefully in a heap of _pain pain pa- no. Gotta get up, fuck_ \- on the ground floor. Keigo heard loud voices from somewhere above him and immediately scrambled to his feet, grabbing the dropped phone and running out the door.

He clutched his right side as he sprinted as fast as he could towards the central courtyard outside the plaza, not once looking back. His gaze narrowed to the buses on the station right at the edge of the property. Keigo raced towards it with a focus he never recalled possessing (but had used only once in the last year; with all but a zanpaktou and some chutzpah). He climbed onto the closest bus a millisecond before its doors slammed shut. The bus took off and Keigo slumped against the door, head turning to see if they followed him.

There was no trace of them.

Keigo closed his eyes, wincing at his throbbing shoulder and turned to swipe his bus pass. His phone screen was cracked, and the call had disconnected. Keigo sighed and called Fujikawa again.

The call went straight to the voice of a lady telling him that it was no longer in service.

Keigo groaned and thumped his head in frustration. Great. Now he was truly alone.

And his shoulder hurt like a motherfucker.

So did his head. Is this was a concussion felt like?

His phone suddenly rung and Keigo visibly startled, fumbling before answering.

"Hello?!"

 _"Dude, where the hell are you? I can't find you outside!"_ Mizuiro. Right. Keigo sighed.

"Mizruiro, hi. Sorry... just got carried away."

 _"You could have told me your lady friend was coming to meet you-"_

"It's not- I didn't know. Um. How-how long was I gone?" Keigo checked the time on his screen.

"Like, almost half an hour? I thought you guys were still talking so we let you be."

30 minutes? Real-life chases were horrible.

Keigo nodded, glancing at the stops as they passed by. "I'm gonna have to take a rain-check for ice-cream I- ow! Fuck," the unexpected speed-bump jostled Keigo's shoulder. _Damn it._

 _"Asano, you okay? Where are you?"  
_

"I'm- ah- I'm fine, really. Just. Can't meet you today, something came up last minute." Keigo fibbed. "And Mizuiro- if she. If anyone you don't know asks about me, just don't say anything okay? Doesn't matter who they say they are."

Silence. Then,

 _"Don't_ say _anythi- Wha- Who was she?!"_

"Wrong crowd at self-defense. They're up to no good and I'm trying to keep them off my back, ya know?" he forced out a chuckle.

 _"Are you sure you're okay? Do you need me to come get-"_

"No! No, I'm good. I'm... fine."

 _"We could talk to Ichig-"_

"God no! Don't even think about- it's a horrible idea that we shall never speak of ever again! I've got it under control. Just... don't say anything, under any circumstances. Please." Keigo begged. The last thing they needed was Ichigo putting his nose in this business. Knowing him, he'd topple every goddamn secret organization with how fiercely protective he was with Karakura.

 _"I don't like this, Keigo."_

"You don't have to, just. Do me this favour. I- uh," the stop to Central Tokyo was nearing, "I gotta go now, I'll talk to you later."

Keigo hung up before his friend could reply. The bus stopped and he clambered from his position to step out. Just as he did, his phone rung again, this time - Keigo checked - from a private number.

Great. Not-SHIELD probably found his number. He didn't pick up, too scared to risk being caught out of sheer stupidity after he just made his heroic escape. The dial tone suddenly changed to a voice message.

 _"Keigo, it's me. Please pick up,"_ Fujikawa's voice rang out. Keigo immediately obliged.

"Hello?" he asked tentatively, scanning his surroundings.

 _"There will be a car waiting at the Gamers store closest to you in five minutes."_

"Dude. What the fuck is happening? I- why- who were they?"

 _"Gamers, five minutes. And I need you to break this phone and dispose it immediately."_

"Wha- Fucking- Ugh, fine!" Keigo hung up and let his head fall backwards. Tears began to gather at the corners of his eyes in frustration, and his exhales condensed into the cold air.

 _Cool it, Keigo. Penta-man's gotta have an explanation,_ he told himself. _Crying and ice-cream are for 1am. Pull yourself together._

So Keigo dropped his phone on the ground, stomped on his with anger lacing each crushing step as it broke into pieces. He picked them up carefully, threw the hardware in a nearby trashcan that he was lucky to find and walked towards Gamers. He then threw the SD card and micro-sim in the slit covering the sewers in the alley next to the store. Trashcans weren't abundant in Tokyo, the last thing he needed was for Not-SHIELD to find all of his information. He had no idea what tech they were operating on, but he could only assume the worst.

A sleek, black car rolled up a few minutes later that Keigo knew inherently belonged to SHIELD and he got in. The driver shifted the gear without a word and pulled out of the busy streets.

* * *

This time, SHIELD HQ was in Minato district, not too far from their previous offices. They got out of the car in the parking lot and Keigo was escorted towards one of the many buildings he was too tired and in pain to pay attention to. He blindly followed the guy in the suit, not Agent McBroody this time, but Keigo didn't bother finding out more.

He entered the new office in a daze, cradling his arm to his chest before he was pushed- not into a cubical, but into a series of rooms lower in the building that clearly had medical supplies. Huh.

Oh yeah his shoulder. Right.

A doctor sat him down at one of the beds as she fussed around his right side. Keigo took it as an opportunity to casually scope it out, seeing as he didn't really get to do so the last time he was in one of these places. SHIELD medical was- well, a lot like a hospital, except everyone knew you were a spy, he supposed. It was plain, no-nonsense, suited for efficiency over comfort - Keigo expected nothing less. Looking around did make him weary though, his body drained from running and hurting himself _(very badly)_ as he stifled a yawn.

"I'd recommend that you rest," the doctor spoke a good while later, not looking away from his shoulder, "But Agent Fujikawa will be here shortly to talk to you. And I need to set this back,"

"...Oh, okay yeah." Wait, " _Set_ it? As in my shoulder?"

The doctor simply raised an eyebrow, "Yes your shoulder. It's quite obviously dislocated, how could you not notice?"

Keigo attempted an aborted shrug that shot pain right up his back and cursed. She was right, that's _not_ where his shoulder was supposed to be. The doctor stared at him for a few moments before shaking her head.

"Oh God, you'd fit right in, and I really wished you didn't," she said. Keigo did not know what that was supposed to mean, "It will only make my job harder- now count to three."

Before he could, a resounding crack, followed by _literal agony_ and a howl that Keigo realised was coming out from his mouth echoed in the room.

"Fuck!" he tried his best to pry himself away from Dr Fucking Mengele but she held on and gave him a stern look, gathering a bandage to wrap him in. "That was highly unnecessary."

As if on cue, the door to Medical opened and Fujikawa strode towards him in an urgency he had never seen the agent express before. Dr Jekyll quickly finished up on his arm and left them alone.

"Penta-man," The agent's mouth twitched at the name, "What did I just go through?"

Fujikawa sat beside him, "I was hoping you would tell me that. I've got people scouting the areas you were in, but we need to know more about them."

Perhaps it was because the adrenaline finally wore off, leaving him exhausted, yes, but with a sharp set of memories of the past two hours. Keigo didn't know how his brain did it, immediately spouting back every single detail of the events in HD - like an IMAX disaster in the making - from his talk with Kisuke to the bright colours of the almost empty ice-cream parlour, to the warmth on his shoulder where Mizuiro's arm rested for 8 minutes, to the scent of earthiness wafting from Tagua Kimi's coat layered with something oddly clinical as she cornered him at the staircase. Those couple of hours felt like years and just a few moments at the same time, so Keigo honestly couldn't understand when he had the chance to register these tidbits of information in such clarity, so much so he wondered if his brain was making this up.

With his messed-up shoulder and concussion to be, it probably was.

"I was walking with my friend to this ice-cream parlour in the new shopping lane by the Karakura community park." He began anyway, eyes now drooping and unfocused, "This girl I've never seen before calls out my name right as we're about the enter the shop, I tell my friend to go inside and wait. She said her name was Tagua Kimi and that she was from SHIELD. For some reason I knew that she wasn't, so I ran."

"We don't have a Tagua Kimi as an alias or an employee-"

"Yeah, I know."

Agent Fujikawa looked at him imploringly, "And how did you deduce that?" Did the agent figure out he was behind the mini cyber infiltration? Judging by the suspicion lacing his features- Keigo couldn't tell. Then again, Agent was showing his hand by looking at him that way, purposely, so maybe he wasn't really suspicious - fuck. Keigo didn't _know_. He will never be able to wrap his head around spies. They certainly wouldn't _want_ him to.

He refrained from shrugging again, instead making a face that expressed a similar sentiment, "Didn't seem right, not your style - she wasn't a native speaker either."

At that Fujikawa did the spy equivalent of whipping his head around in horror: he twitched. "What else can you tell me about her?"

"Brunette, medium to long hair, brown eyes, kinda short - I'd say 5'3" or 5'4" - wore a blue short skirt, white t-shirt, light pink pea-coat," Keigo rattled off, "- had a beige handbag I think? Or mauve? Is that a colour? Anyway she was- um. I think she smelled like mud? And disinfectant. There was also this other guy with her, like 6 feet dude with a crew cut, black shirt and thick hoodie. They chased- well, like I said _I_ ran first, and they chased me to this giant wholesale store at the edge of Karakura Honchou and eventually cornered me by the fire-escape."

"And she wanted to speak with me."

"But she didn't know you- called your my handler."

Fujikawa frowned properly at this. Keigo would have given a shit if his mind wasn't racing with absurd conclusions while simultaneously trying not to fall asleep. "I should hope not. And you didn't ask who they work for."

"Didn't say a word. I've seen criminal shows man, the less you say, the better."

"Hmm. Good. We will need you to write all of this down later, if that's okay." Keigo nodded. Fujikawa got up and pulled out a device that could be either a phone or a taser or both - Keigo wouldn't know if he tried. The agent looked at him for a moment then, back to being Mr. Stoic, before his gaze visibly drifted to Keigo's shoulder. Keigo shifted uncomfortably, not used to the agent blatantly staring at him like that It was disconcerting, if he was being honest; he'd rather be dismissed with a flick of a finger than be exposed to a spy looking into his entire soul.

"They did that?" the agent asked after a pause.

"Uh- no."

Fujikawa nodded. "You wouldn't happen to have jumped from the fire-exit to make your escape, would you?"

Keigo wondered if Fujikawa had eyes on him this whole time, "I may have," he shot back, "I can live with a broken shoulder, as long as I get to _live._ You know- life? Cool concept, once you overcome existential dread and puberty, I've heard."

The agent looked at him for a bit longer and Keigo was tempted to ask him to cut it out. Then, out of no where - and looking like it physically _pained_ him to do so - he said, "Today, you have done SHIELD a service that very few would have done in your place. Especially since you claimed you no longer wanted to involve yourself in our business just yesterday. For that and for your injuries, we are willing to compensate with anything you require- within possibility, of course."

"My sister-"

"Will be watched, at all times, along with the friends at the parlour. We will ensure that no harm comes their way."

"Oh thank fuc- I mean. Thanks." Keigo gave a tired smile. SHIELD wasn't as squeaky clean as they claimed to be, but at least he knew them. And Kisuke apparently had his back on this so Keigo assumed they wouldn't hurt his family and friends.

"I would also appreciate it if you re-assessed your decision to join SHIELD academy-"

"-Are you fucking _joking_ -"

"-to ensure an event like this does not happen again. Not only was our information at risk, but so was your life. Despite the Krav Maga classes you had been taking, you are still and untrained civilian who has too much-"

"-I handled myself pretty alright I think-"

"-and are unfamiliar with the lengths people would go to know what you know. _Keigo,_ " Fujikawa stressed, "Today could have gotten so much worse - and it has, for countless others. You were out in the midst of civilians with no protection, no training and a potential enemy agency on your tail. Do you realise how this sounds?"

Well... when he put it like that.

But Keigo couldn't just _leave_ Karakura High and join an academy all of a sudden. Granted, SHIELD still didn't know about Ichigo's and Co's involvement in the stuff they were researching, but that didn't mean the carrot-top idiot won't come sniffing the second he senses something off. Powers or no, he'd been braving a hero-complex for _years_ now.

This was his entire _life_ Keigo was giving away just to be protected from an enemy that wanted _SHIELD_ , not him. Not really.

He told this to the agent, who stood in silence for all of two seconds before suggesting Keigo maintain his old contract again.

"You realise this is the opposite of 'I don't want to work with SHIELD' right?"

"Mr Asano, you're on another ghost organization's radar, and I can assure you they're not the only ones who have information about you. They knew how to find you, and despite SHIELD protection for your family, they will keep finding ways to contact you unless _we_ get more intel. So we either remove you entirely from the picture by hiding and training you in our academy, or we give you field agent training until you're eighteen so that you're able to stay here, in Karakura. After that, we can discuss official recruitment and other steps."

" _Official recruitme-_ You want _me_ to be an agent? Me." Keigo stared at him dumbly. Spy school was different, spy work was a whole new ball game.

"Only when you are of legal age. They underestimated you, which you used to your advantage and got out of an incredibly sensitive situation by jumping two stories down a building-"

"Three."

Fujikawa paused, " _Three_ stories down a building with nothing to go on except pure intuition, I presume. Do not make me repeat what happened to you a third time. You were their Op, they _failed._ Because you didn't _let_ them pass. This was you _without_ training. Imagine being prepared for it next time; which there _will_ be. When they bring in the big guns - and I mean that quite literally as well - your fight or flight instincts can only take you so far, so _please_. For the love of God, let us train you."

The agent looked like he wanted to pull his hair out, but instead only straightened himself and buttoned his suit.

Shit.

 _Shit_.

Keigo already knew he was folding like a paper crane. Barely a day out of this godforsaken organization and he's being pulled back like a fucking magnet. Fujikawa _made sense_. If SHIELD did not find out who his attackers were, there will be more incidents like this, and more agencies out for blood or whatever it was they wanted. And then Kisuke would have to handle all of them and eventually the Supernatural Squad would find out and they'd _hate_ Keigo and might even _kill_ him, oh my God what if the Soul Society found out too? Keigo was toast.

On the other hand if he joined SHIELD, Kisuke would have to know about it anyway because Keigo _cannot_ handle this shit all by himself, and he would have _more_ to hide from his friends. Being secretive is only so much fun until it takes a toll on him and eventually he would slip up and Ichigo would find out _anyway and ugh.  
_

There's also the fact that Keigo still did not trust SHIELD out of sheer principle - trying his best to ignore the amount of times they saved his hide in circumstances that were _technically_ led by them in the first place-

This was giving him a headache. He needed to rest first, think about this rationally, talk to Urahara before doing anything stupid. Who's to say SHIELD didn't sic Kimi and her bodyguard on him just to get him on their side? It's a convoluted thought, and Keigo cannot imagine being important enough for them to waste such resources on him, but it's also a very SHIELD thing to do. Or a spy thing to do, at least.

Damn it.

"I need to think about it," he mumbled after a while. Fujikawa nodded in agreement.

"Usually I would say take your time but we're sort of on a time crunch. Still, only your full consent will be accepted." With that, he walked to the door and gestured outside, "In the meantime, if you will."

Keigo groaned.

* * *

SHIELD was true to their word on keeping tabs at his home. Keigo saw a lady he had never seen before walking a dog across his apartment building and only glance at him briefly. She was middle-aged and aloof, with a huge, grey hoodie and heavy winter boots. Nothing like Kimi. Total SHIELD material. Keigo gave her a smile that resembled a grimace and went on with his day. Kon was supposed to come over to get the academy brochure, just as Kisuke promised, but Keigo had no idea how the guy was supposed to reach his place with Ichigo inhabiting his own body for the time being. Perhaps another _gigai_? Keigo had to keep a watch out.

Not to mention, now that both SHIELD and possibly Not-SHIELD were keeping an eye on him, his trips to Urahara's had to be cut to non-existent. So, Keigo wrote a letter explaining the events of the previous day to give to Kon when he arrived. Which happened at around 4 in the afternoon, just a few minutes after he got back from school.

(School, where Mizuiro had looked at him with an unamused, and surprisingly, hurt expression the whole day, eyes constantly darting to Keigo's right side despite the teenager having covered it up with a jacket the best he could. Keigo would have felt guilty if he hadn't been on the receiving end of kept secrets so many times before. Keigo threw him a tight smile and said nothing.)

Turns out _gigai_ are a completely redundant investment when stuffed-toys do the same job.

"What happened to you?" Keigo asked after opening the door to greet a plush lion in a school-girl's uniform with its hands on its... hips.

"Nothing _happened_. This is my body now."

Keigo wanted to laugh so, _so_ bad. But he held it in for the sake of discretion. Looking at either side of his apartment, he ushered the toy inside and tried to comprehend what he was seeing.

So this was his reality now.

Christ.

"So. The boss-man said you had somethin' to give ta me?" Keigo put his fingers to his lips, "What? I'll say what I want! And I'm not an errand boy, so you better tell Ura- mmph!" Keigo shut the loud-mouthed nuisance with a couch pillow and carried him to his room. He wrestled both the brochure and the letter into Kon's stuffing with mild disgust, ignoring the toy's muffled protests before bringing him back out.

"I won't let you go until you promise to shut up," Keigo put as much warning as he could in that sentence without choking on laughter at the sight of Kon struggling in that ridiculous costume. Whoever did that to him did him dirty. He could relate.

With a final, failed attempt at struggle, Kon huffed an angry assent and Keigo slowly took off the pillow and tossed it elsewhere.

"What was that all about?!" the idiot blurted anyway.

Was this what it felt like hanging out with Keigo? He certainly understood where his friends were coming from then. _God,_ now there were two of him.

"A necessary precaution. Now, be careful when you go out, do not attract _any_ attention from _anyone_. Not little girls or sick, old bastards. Just straight to your guy okay? We can hang later at the arcade or whatever."

"Really? Awesome! Fine, I'll do this, but no take backs!"

"Cross my heart. Now go! Shoo. And don't get caught!" he called out at the lion, who pranced away happily. Yeah okay, that was definitely another Keigo. Well, he knew how to handle himself, at least.

Keigo closed the door, ensuring it was locked and went back to his room. The teenager was requested to stay at home as much as he could, to make SHIELD surveillance easier. So he had to resort to homework and gaming for the rest of the week. He was more than okay with it - happy to take advantage of Mizuho's absence for the next two days - not accounting the anxiety of being attacked and his every move watched. But for now he had all of one week to think about Fujikawa's offer and wait.

...

...

God, he was bored already.

On an impulse, Keigo opened his laptop, went on his online social profile and typed in a new message.

 _xxRaizerDelicatexx: Hey! Long time no talk! what are u upto?_

 _Kuneida_R: ...get fucked._

 _Kuneida_R: ..._

 _Kuneida_R: fine. what do you want._


	3. Picket Duty

Asano Keigo was a bigger bundle of contradictions than Kisuke had initially imagined.

The boy went from annoying to somber in seconds, from timid to fierce within a moment's notice; from running away due to self-preservation, to immediately grabbing the nearest sword and refusing to kneel in front of a tyrannical god who should have been able to crush him with just his presence, all in the same breath.

From telling him he was done with SHIELD to escaping a mall chase from more unknown shadow organizations.

Kisuke read the letter three more times before rubbing his temples - a habit he picked up exactly 72 hours ago; when not only did he unearth something that used to be Kurosaki Isshin's business and _not_ his to take up with the Soul Society, but right after the kid had the audacity to spit poisonous truths of Kisuke's past at his face - and headed to his quarters to rest his eyes.

Not to mention, Keigo wasn't the only teenager constantly dropping by the shop asking for help anymore. Just a fortnight ago, Kurosaki Karin visited him - nerves and _reiatsu_ wafting off her in waves - wondering if there was a way for her to stop being hollow bait all the time. He decided to help her in a heartbeat (owing the Seireitei's pardons to her brother after all) by giving her supplies to repress her _reiatsu_ when required. Since then, she frequently came back citing school ending early. Kisuke knew the need for a safe-space when he saw one, so he let her be.

Asano though, was a whole other ballgame of recklessness and sharp intuition wrapped in a spirit-sensitive, jittery human body. He was hands-down the most frustrating, indecisive, volatile teenager Kisuke had encountered, Ichigo included.

Because Ichigo had the excuse of being the most powerful 16 year old in the living world and the dead, complications were a part of the package. Kisuke had predicted Ichigo's self-sacrificing streak from a mile away, which is why Yoruichi's involvement during the teenager's infiltration into the Soul Society was a blessing more than anything else. She had kept him mostly in check for as long as she could, and continued to be someone Ichigo respected and listened to on occasion. It wasn't the best solution to fight the recklessness that coursed through Kurosaki's veins, but it helped contain the damage to an extent. Not to mention, Ichigo was a textbook martyr, a trait Urahara had seen compromise too many shinigami before him, so he planned accordingly. It worked well enough too. So Kisuke understood Ichigo: all that energy and god-like abilities limited to a compact body and fragile mind were bound to lead to some mistakes.

Keigo though, was _human._ No human boy should be this terrifyingly unpredictable.

Don't get him wrong, Kisuke has never once underestimated their race. After all, he is a product of their lifetimes and he knew they were not to be trifled with. SHIELD was a prime example of that. So was the man in a flying metal suit currently taking down terrorists in the Middle East, who as far as Kisuke knew, wasn't powered either.

That said, Asano was a wild card that possibly needed to be reigned in, taken down a notch or two. Not because he was _cocky_ \- by _Yamamoto's beard_ that would have been so much easier to deal with - but because he was entirely oblivious to his potential of becoming dangerous.

SHIELD figured it out - before Kisuke himself could have - and grabbed Keigo up before anyone else could have. Or perhaps it was SHIELD's involvement itself that triggered Asano's bizarrely sharp instincts.

At least that's what the kid implied when he confessed his months' long affiliation with them, acting as if he had no _idea_ why SHIELD would give him the time of the day because of what he 'put them through'. And Kisuke agreed, initially (3 days ago, that was _three days ago_ ) - equally confused by SHIELD's interest in the teenager when they could have easily targeted an entire squadron of meta-humans in the same classroom as their apparent white whale.

Except Keigo mentioned that he 'didn't tell them, obviously. I mean Soul Society, Hollows, yeah. But I'd never tell them about my friend. I suggested they focus on the hollows instead, since they cause more damage - for whatever that was worth,' with a tired shrug as if that isn't _exactly_ what SHIELD did.

There was a lot for Kisuke to unpack within those few hours they patched up a plan together, so he left it on the back burner, focusing instead on maintaining peace between himself and the Seireitei and threatening SHIELD bodily harm should they step a toe out of line. Had it not worked, he had contingencies ready. Asano's socio-political consent rant aside, Kisuke would not have hesitated to wipe an entire organization's memory if they threatened the Soul World in any shape or form, irrespective of the long-term ramifications. But SHIELD were smart; they backed off from rubbing too many elbows and instead, used the _one_ day of reprieve Kisuke gave himself from averting crisis to enrolling Keigo into their supposed academy. _With brochures._

It took Kisuke a total of 2 hours since this morning to realise that Asano wasn't the only one in over his head, that Kisuke was equally dumbfounded for entirely different reasons. While Keigo was confused about his worth and usefulness to SHIELD, and now _other_ government agencies, Kisuke spent every waking minute mentally berating himself for not realising sooner that _of-fucking-course_ they would choose Asano.

The kid _screamed_ field operative material.

Personality aside, Keigo had the agility, stamina and speed that matched the job description to the T. He was quick to think and had a temper that flared when he's cornered; he unknowingly soaked up information like a sponge and adapted to situations seamlessly. He apparently knew how to hack into secure facilities and had a tankful of knowledge on sensitive, otherworldly species and phenomena _and_ had high memory retention _and_ an above-average healing factor.

These were all facts displayed bare in front of them since the teenager was roped into being one of Karakura's only novice defense group. Keigo had time and time again proven all of those qualities to be true, from holding his own - for however long or little - against Aizen, to barging into his shop with a crowbar ready to be swung, bodily protecting his civilian best-friend.

Keigo has always been these things and more - retrospect reminded Kisuke whilst snickering behind is back - but he was selective in his bravery. Keigo never showed his capabilities all at once, but put forward a combination of them at a time. He was an easy target to underestimate, refraining people like Urahara from seeing the bigger picture. Neither he, nor does he suspect Keigo himself, could predict _when_ the teenager would do a 180 and say - jump from a building and walk it off with nothing more than a dislocated shoulder.

Kisuke is very old, and very experienced - he should not have been surprised by this turn of events. But here he was, staving off a headache and a bitter conscience at being completely blindsided by something right under his nose. It had not been the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. However, not only he, but SHIELD and _someone else who may or may not be SHIELD_ were bested by an unsuspecting teenager with a bag full of party tricks and awkward metaphors.

So either he and every other surveillance group were fools, or Asano Keigo was worth investigating.

"You look like something the cat coughed up," Kisuke huffed at the deep voice accompanied by sleek, black fur entering the room. Yoruichi looked rather pleased with her pun as she leaped onto his shoulders and began kneading his pressure points.

"That joke will never be funny," he replied, pushing aside the brochure ( _no, really. Brochures? Another thing Kisuke could not wrap his head around. Then again, if he was the head of a secret service, he would take unholy glee in messing around with people with something as mundane as_ brochures _)._

" _You_ told me that joke,"

"My statement stands."

"What's gotten you so maudlin, then?" she hopped down and pawed at the papers on the table.

Kisuke contemplated dragging her into his business again. His decisions were tactical and the one time he was led astray by a little emotion got him banished to the Human World. Still, Kisuke could admit to himself feeling slightly off-kilter with Yoruichi in the picture. He trusted her with his life, and knew her to be the best on-field fighter there was, but any harm directed at her would weight too heavily on his conscience to continue. He could handle Keigo and SHIELD and the third organization himself - despite it draining his time and energy far more than he was used to. It was nonetheless doable, even without the memory altering. Kisuke understood the cause and effect of such a drastic measure, despite his earlier desperation for it.

He could however, gather all that existed on every secret agency since what the humans claim as their World War 2 and start from there. it was far too much work, but perhaps Kisuke should have foreseen the consequences of supernatural influence on the human world before today. He needed to have multiple cards up his sleeve for the inevitable showdown that would eventually lead to their worlds colliding, be it a year from now or fifty.

And he would need all the help he can get. Which mean Asano Keigo.

And Yoruichi.

"I'm not as good at probabilities as I had originally thought," he said and pulled up the files he recently got printed on SHIELD and Keigo.

The cat's snout twitched in what Kisuke knew was amusement, "I could have told you that."

Kisuke gave her a short summary of the past few days' events, during which he noticed Yoruichi's expression grow more and more intrigued. A bit shocked too, but she was always good at hiding that.

"And you're confident that this boy can help?" she asked, at some point turning completely human. Kisuke had long since given up on offering her clothing.

"He is a start, no other plan of his has worked, according to him. But everything seems to be falling in his favour either way," he mused, "My plan for him also blew up rather spectacularly after the chase from yesterday. If I'm not watching him, he will make a decision that, for the life of me, I cannot predict. So I do not know how it will end for us."

His partner raised an impressive brow, "He's quite something then. We must discuss this with the Soul Society as soon as possible. I know you're trying to keep them appeased for now, but they won't be happy when everything goes tits up. Remember how they reacted to those blue aliens forcing us to take their collateral?"

"Ah yes, Unohana-taichou worked overtime with how many shinigami were almost wiped out in that war. Glad to have had that captain show up when she did and drag it away from us. Is she still around by the way?" Kisuke was ever-so-slightly busy dealing with the Visords' problems back then to keep track of the whole fiasco. He would probably have to dig that up as well.

Yoruichi scratched her head, "Probably still trapped there," she shrugged, "Not our problem yet. What do you want from me?"

Well, since she asked.

"Keep an eye on the kid? Tell him I sent you, make sure he doesn't screw anything up."

Yoruichi grinned like she always did - shark-like and all knowing. She stood, stretching unabashedly before shrinking back into her feline form and jumping on the window sill.

"Like that has worked out before."

With a final snort, Kisuke watched her leap out of sight, in the general direction of the kid's apartment.

There was too much to do, Kisuke thought, and Asano Keigo was just the beginning.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey! Hope you enjoyed this update. Check this story out on ao3 since I upload there more frequently!**

 **Until next time**


	4. Overwatch

On Wednesday, Kuneida Ryo came over carrying a laptop and a stern expression that immediately flickered to worry when she saw Keigo's haggard form.

The Good Drugs for his shoulder had just been reduced to Mediocre Drugs that day and it dawned on Keigo in an excruciating realization that he may have overestimated his body's abilities to take a hit from three stories above. Not only had his dominant shoulder been driven to hell and back, but his entire right side was busted and bruised like nothing he had ever experienced before. Keigo clearly regretted having taken his body for granted; basic movement hurt like a fucker, and the heating around the house being turned off for maintenance did not help in the slightest.

Keigo grunted in greeting, slowly moving aside to let Ryo in and closed the door with what felt like too much effort for his fragile bones.

"What happened, Keigo?" Ryo asked as they settled into the living room. Keigo painfully wrapped himself in the rumpled blanket he was previously covered in with a whine and curled against the armrest. The damned shoulder was visibly throbbing now, shit.

"Got too cocky," he mumbled, "I think I assumed I was invincible or something. Past Keigo is a _dick."_

Ryo got up from her seat and sat down next to him, hand hovering awkwardly above his shoulder. Keigo pitifully lifted his head and moved it under her palm, "Please pet me, I need comfort."

Ryo winced and retracted her hand, "I _really_ don't want to."

After five seconds of Keigo realising that his puppy-dog pout was all but useless, he huffed and motioned for her to turn on her laptop. She gave him a deadpan stare instead.

"The last time you asked me for a favor, I had to buy a new laptop. I think I deserve an explanation first."

Ryo wasn't wrong per say, but he needed the only device not connected to his possibly hijacked network to be open and working for it. Then again, he could always use a pen and paper, which was certainly less likely to be hacked. But Keigo doubted his left hand would be any good at writing when his dominant one had a pretty ineligible chicken scratch. Instead, Keigo reached for the remote on the coffee table and turned on the television to a volume loud enough to be distracting.

He then asked Ryo to grab him a notepad and pen hanging from the refrigerator. Ryo, bless her heart, didn't question him apart from the narrowing of her eyes and did as she was told.

Keigo's left hand trembled as he wrote in the worst handwriting ever: _probs bugged_

Ryo has always been too clever for her own good, so she instantly connected the dots. Her eyes widened no more than a fraction before she grabbed the pen and furiously scribbled: _my laptop remains closed. are there cameras?_

Keigo sighed, that was fair.

 _not sure, doubt it tho_

 _why am I here?_

 _i jumped off a building & dislocated my shoulder_

"What?!" Ryo's exclaimed, eyes snapping to his, " _Why?"_

 _ppl following me,_ he wrote back. She was probably regretting not petting his hair now huh. Damn right.

Ryo hastily wrote, _the ones we... talked about?_

Really? Talked about? That was her definition of almost destabilizing Japan HQ of SHIELD? Skill aside, Keigo thought Ryo would make a horrible spy.

Then again, judging by the increasing pounding in his shoulder, so would he.

(And SHIELD wanted to hire him. Christ.)

 _no. others. cant leave house, need ur help._

He could see Ryo become rigid at the idea of being involved. Hell, Keigo himself felt bad for dragging her into this, fully knowing that she had decided to stay away from the Supernatural drama for a reason, despite knowing a decent amount of it. It wasn't like he _wanted_ to involve her... just that- while Kisuke _and_ SHIELD told him they would help, Keigo needed a backdoor exit in case things went south. To the world, Kuneida Ryo was Keigo's kind-of-sort-of girlfriend, which - although surprising to most, didn't phase anyone because _of course_ the muggles of the group would date each other. To them, Keigo was still the somewhat-annoying, loud comic-relief (which honestly, worked in his favour for fucking once. And now he had a reputation for being funny; always an ego boost, that), and Ryo was the quiet, analytical nerd who just happened to be compatible with him. Urahara may suspect her to have a hand in this business, but as far as Keigo knew, Ryo was more than capable of taking care of herself; had been doing so before he butted into her life.

Still, stressing her out left a bad taste in his mouth, so Keigo made sure that she knew she could back off whenever she wanted.

Expect for today, when she would inevitably be followed home by someone or the other.

Keigo conveyed as much and saw a mixture of fear and anger cross her face. She was rightfully pissed, and he was going to grovel the second his temporary house ban was lifted and try his best to explain everything to her without giving SHIELD or Urahara away. For now though, Keigo could only give her a sheepish look tinged with exhaustion.

"You're using your injuries as a bargaining chip aren't you?" Ryo stated after looking at his sorry form for a whole minute straight.

"Maybe," he replied and achingly sat up, wincing at the loss of feeling on his left side. This was getting real old, real fast. "Help me to my room?" he tried for the puppy look again, and this time Ryo gave out a defeated sigh and helped him up, television still on and forgotten.

They entered his bedroom, Keigo beelined to his desk and rummaged through its contents before pulling out an envelope he readied the day before, when morphine still flooded his body to dull the pain enough for him to write. It was a more censored version of events, somewhat unlike the one he sent to Urahara, and some - well, instructions would be an overstatement - but some checklist items that she could do if she felt ballsy enough to make a loose contingency plan.

Past Keigo may be a dick, but at least he thought ahead of time.

"This is for you," he said as he handed the envelope over to her. "Careful with it, and once you're done reading-"

"Yeah," Ryo saved him the effort of saying it, apparently having watched just as many action films as himself. She was going to probably toast marshmallows over the flames of his letter tonight out of pure spite. Lord knows she's earned it.

A yawn tearing out of his mouth had Ryo shake her head, drag him back to the couch and dote on him like she promised she wouldn't. Keigo did _not_ deserve her friendship, especially after today. Still, not looking at a gift-horse in the mouth, Keigo took the tablet and warm water from her hands and downed it. They stayed in the cold living room for a couple of hours, watching variety television with the occasional comment before Ryo bade him goodbye.

"If anything worse than this happens," she began, packing up her stuff, "I'm telling Tatsuki. And she will tell Ichigo, who-"

"God, _please_ no. Anything but that!" Keigo groaned. First Mizuiro, now this, Christ. Just because Ichigo used to be an all powerful being didn't mean he would know how to solve this outside of punching his way through. Keigo could confirm, from experience, that spy organizations were a bit more nuanced than that.

"Then you better keep your head above water Asano. This is strike two," Ryo warned him in that sweet way she tended to. Not out of anger, but out of concern.

Concern for Keigo, apparently.

Keigo figured if _his_ classmate was under surveillance by guys with big guns, he'd be worried too.

"Will you be at school tomorrow?" she asked. Keigo had skipped after Monday, feeling rather loopy with his medication.

"Yeah, maybe," he croaked in reply. He was beginning to feel antsy, but has been keeping it under wraps for the sake of his healing shoulder.

She left after that, closing the door securely so that he didn't have to. Keigo felt paranoid enough to check on the locks anyway.

Walking back to the sofa felt lonely, then. Having Ryo over made Keigo forget how devoid of honest human interaction he was since... since Christmas, really. She was the only one who he felt saw _him_ instead of the funny guy, a potential agent, or the _underdog_ or whatever Urahara believed he was. She knew his motivations, despite not understanding them, and helped him without having any particular agenda apart from partial curiosity at best.

And now she was gone and Keigo was alone again. Stuck between deciding to join SHIELD or not, between placing his trust in Urahara and hoping to _God_ he didn't end up like Ichigo, stuck with not having his parents or his sister around, whom he missed right now. A lot.

Shit, he missed Mizuho _so much._

Keigo felt like Mizuho would know what to do. She'd probably tell him to get out of his funk and deal with it "like a man" and Keigo wouldn't have the heart to tell her that dealing like a man is what got him into this mess in the first place. Instead, they would make plans together, a stark resemblance to when they were kids and would pretend to play buddy cops fighting crime. Mizuho would be the lead, of course, and Keigo the side-kick, which he would only sometimes complain about. They made a good team back then, before she found a new group of friends and he found Kojima.

And now here he was, feeling kinda friendless, with a bum shoulder and what definitely was a fever, trying to remember the whole point of this adventure. Trying to imagine himself as something other than a pawn to further someone else's agenda. God, is this what Ichigo felt like all the time? No wonder the guy was so angry, Keigo owed him a soda or something. Granted, Ichigo hasn't been the most approachable towards other people - people like Keigo especially, who tended to... well. Wear their hearts on their sleeves, but if the guy ever felt as alone as Keigo did now, he did not entirely blame him for keeping everyone at arm's distance.

Ichigo would never be able to trust anyone.

Keigo hoped he didn't follow his footsteps.

Huffing in annoyance at his maudlin state, Keigo decided that another nap was due, hoping he'd get out of his funk after that. He laid down carefully, trying not to jostle his shoulder much and wrapped himself in the blanket before slowly falling into a dreamless sleep.

Keigo woke up to a cat sitting on his chest.

* * *

It was usually counterintuitive to seek help from Japanese intelligence on matters like these, seeing as SHIELD was resourceful enough for both of them, so Yoshiro was quite reluctant to reach out at the best of times, despite having clear need to do so.

Asano Keigo, as usual, changed that perception rather quickly.

Being attacked and chased at home base wasn't out of the ordinary for agents like them, but dragging a civilian made it a Priority 0 situation on the safety front of their alliance. Keigo was a Japanese citizen after all, and ideally should have had no contact with SHIELD whatsoever.

Clearly that did not work out as expected.

Fighting the urge to massage his temples, the agent waited patiently to be called into the Director's office. Five minutes later, he was escorted there by a woman.

"Agent Fujikawa," the Director of PSIA greeted him with a handshake. Yoshiro nodded in return, "It's been a while since your last visit, I heard. How can we be of service?" Straight to the point, good. Yoshiro liked this new director.

"I would like information on any foreign intelligence crossing the borders over the past month," he replied bluntly. Time was of essence if he wanted to catch the perps.

The director paused from shuffling his papers - a motion to appear busy, most likely - and looked up curiously. "That's a bold demand to make, Agent."

Not as easily pleased as his predecessor then. Fujikawa observed the small frown and suspicious gaze with interest. He had to negotiate.

"We have gained intel on suspicious activity targeting both of us on the deep web," he said, not wanting to alarm the director by mentioning the breaches, "Not the easiest to track, of course, but all signs point to the PSIA, and by association, SHIELD. I have my agents sending you the files as we speak. I was also wondering-" he leaned forward, noting the spark of curiosity the director's eyes. He had his full attention, "Does the phrase Black Sky mean anything to you?"

The agent caught the moment the director's eyes widened and his posture turned stiff. There were whispers about the phrase, travelling through CIA grapevine that SHIELD managed to get hold of. No particular information had been disclosed, and a branch of SHIELD was working on decoding the words, although it was given secondary priority. Still, this intel was transferred to Japan HQ for a reason - perhaps the answer lay somewhere in the country itself.

The director of PSIA didn't need to know that though, he just needed incentive to give Yoshiro what he wanted.

The man corrected himself and smoothed his expression, "I'm afraid it doesn't ring a bell, no." _Lies._

"Very well, just curious is all. Chatter picks up all kinds of things... Have you received our files yet?" Fujikawa asked just as the director's computer chirped a notification. He opened it to find the relevant data designed by SHIELD for this purpose specifically.

Agent Fujikawa waited for a total of two minutes before the director finished skimming through the folder and cleared his throat.

"I can contact Border Security and the Ministry of Defense if you'd like-" the director relented after another minute of consideration, "However, while I appreciate you taking the red-tape route, if it _is_ an emergency, I'd suspect SHIELD to not waste any time with bureaucracy."

"We're trying not to step on too many toes, best as we can. After all, your trust and confidence is of utmost importance to us," Fujikawa replied. That was only partially correct, much like this entire conversation saturated with half-truths. In reality, Yoshiro may not have informed DC headquarters of the incident from this Sunday just yet, and ordered the rest of his branch to also lay low - stating the issue to be insignificant in the face of what they were developing. His subordinates mostly agreed, somewhat uneasily, and Yoshiro knew he would slowly lose their confidence if his reasons kept sounding so half-baked.

Asano Keigo joining them would certainly take a load off his back. The boy was going to give him grey hairs at this point.

Seeing as how precarious the research in Japan HQ was, Fujikawa did not want to raise any alarms in DC, in case they decided to withdraw their portion of the funding and dissolve his branch. He could only ask his uncle for so many favours before Fujikawa Industries withdrew too.

"Very well, you will have what you need by tomorrow," the director concluded and got up, extending his hand once again, "Thank you for coming to us, and for sharing what you have. We appreciate it,"

Agent Fujikawa mimicked the courtesy with a pleasant enough smile, and left the office.

Keigo's assailants, it turned out, were Chinese intelligence. Yoshiro could admit that he did not see that coming; he probably should have.

True to his word, the PSIA head transferred a list of all diplomats and governmental bodies entering and leaving Japan for the past month and a half the very next working day, and by that evening, Cyber had cross-referenced the profiles with Keigo's surprisingly detailed description to conclude that they were dealing with the MSS.

The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. MSS was infamous for their espionage, keeping tabs on almost every important intelligence organization in the world. But he would have expected their agents to be slightly more discreet in their affairs. They were competent enough to discover someone as invisible as SHIELD, so it came as a bit of a surprise when they let their only connection to SHIELD go.

The whole ordeal, after all, went south for them. Granted, they managed to hide from all places that held cameras - a feat in itself, since Tokyo never held back on their surveillance, but ultimately, it wasn't enough in terms of anonymity.

Then again, like SHIELD, they too may have underestimated a fifteen year old boy.

Fujikawa reminded himself that times were changing, and that soul reapers and monsters and heaven and hell existed. How shocking can a slippery teenager be?

He asked two of his agents to locate them and set up a meeting for the next day. The sooner they dealt with them, the faster he could get back to R&D.

The meeting was held the day before Asano Keigo was to decide his fate with SHIELD. As much as Fujikawa pressuring him into joining them felt like lead in his stomach, Keigo's input on their primary research would be invaluable now that he magically happened to discover analytical thinking. Perhaps some facts about the Soul World would be brought to surface to give way for more breakthroughs. The portal simulation was currently unstable, still in the process of adapting to new frequencies - it was a long term project that Fujikawa had time to worry about later. Smaller inventions akin to the Phaser prototype would come in incredibly handy as a defense against future supernatural threats, irrespective of Urahara Kisuke's sudden intervention. And Keigo could not only help them understand that, but eventually be able to use it too.

Not to mention, if the MSS was ready to take him on, the boy needed as much protection he could get.

But that was neither here or there. It's not like Yoshiro _cared_ for him or anything.

The agent met the two MSS reps at a busy cafe in Harajuku, wearing something that resembled business-casual attire. It had been a long time since he was undercover, being in charge of these operations and administrative tasks as of late, but his persona fit somewhat like second skin - and he looked like any other man in his early forties on a Thursday morning heading for brunch.

Upon meeting the two agents, Fujikawa felt like he would have been taken aback by how similar they were in real life to Asano's descriptions, but wasn't because it took more than that to startle him. Apart from clothing, almost every feature the kid noted was spot on. The woman who called herself Tagua Kimi was under another Chinese alias, he suspected, so he left the decryption of their personal information to Level 4s back on base. They would inform him immediately if they found anything substantial.

He greeted the duo - who looked vaguely uncomfortable for people so desperate for an appointment with him. Discussion was stilted, Yoshiro sounding mild mannered while the other two were relatively serious. Fujikawa assumed he would be too, if he was bested by a teenager in the middle of a street and subsequently found on the database within days. It made him wonder why they hadn't fled the country immediately.

The man didn't say much, suggesting that "Zheng Mia" was his superior officer and therefore did most of the talking.

They had come ready with a tablet that they hesitantly showed him - he inwardly questioned if that was their initial plan or if MSS intervened. More data was required for further assessments. Fujikawa remotely instructed Legal to get in contact with the MSS base in China in order to establish something more than two agents who were a few steps away from going rogue.

"SHIELD has been a shadow organization for decades now, so you understand why I am wary of your intel, seeing as you attacked on of our own less than a week ago," he said finally, looking at the tablet with interest. It had files on an incident from a small village in China more than 40 years ago. It would have been unassuming was it not for the fact that the whole village was wiped out with no suspects, weapon or motive. _Too weird to be sober about it_ , Agent Hunter would say.

"Outlandish doesn't mean it's not true. After all, this isn't the first supernatural encounter you have witnessed have you?" Mia may have been referring to Karakura as a whole. But the tone of the voice had him narrow his eyes. No one was supposed to know about-

That happened _years_ ago. If she knew...

Yoshiro might have to contact DC after all.

"What did you expect to find at SHIELD, then?"

"What any reconnaissance mission wants. Information, answers..." she trailed off knowingly.

"Doesn't change the fact that you acted hostile towards my agent. SHIELD has little to offer you, seeing as you don't have much to offer us either."

"Is that what he is?" she taunted again, leaning back against her chair.

Fujikawa did not dignify that with a response.

Mia changed the subject, "We do need your help. MSS may have an international reputation, but we do not leave our people hanging. We had detected unnatural behaviour in the Tokyo region that could have answers to solve this case. With similar events occurring globally, it is not out of possibility that whatever caused that massacre in that village won't happen again."

She was right, and knew more about this event that she was ready to share. But there was something in the atmosphere, something that could not be described using any scientific means - but he could see his people feeling it too. It felt like the end of a wave and the rise of a new one, the final tide hitting a rock before splintering it into pieces, shaping it into sand and stone. Things were changing, and not necessarily for the good.

"Besides," she added, "-we have reason to believe that these phenomena will only increase in frequency. We have _your_ history to thank for that." It was said with a certain level of malice that Agent Fujikawa would find unnecessary if he wasn't aware of exactly how many countries were sacrificed to re-establish SSR's new era. Fujikawa understood the reasons behind those decisions, collateral damage was inevitable. But he could see why some didn't. China, apparently, was one of them.

"Very well," he replied after much deliberation. "We can have a meeting as soon as your superiors establish connection with us. Until then," he placed his card on the table, nodding at them both and walked out of the cafe.

* * *

 **A/N: Hope you liked this chapter! Remember, this story is more often updated on ao3 by the same name!**


	5. Cadet Cornflake

The meeting on Friday was rather anti-climactic for both parties.

While Agent Fujikawa hoped Keigo would join SHIELD, he could admit to himself that he was no longer able to predict the teenager's actions. Even thinking about it without having the kid explain word-to-word how his brain worked was a headache and a half, so Fujikawa put it in the back-burner after a trying conference call with director of the MSS and focused on the case that the two Chinese agents were assigned with. His day only got significantly worse, seeing as upon cross-referencing the case ID, Fujikawa realised that this information was, in fact, _not_ new to SHIELD and had been kept under wraps. The project that this report was relevant to was not disclosed by Hill - claiming it was need to know only, with a Level 9 restriction access.

 _Level 9._

Fujikawa himself was a Level 7 agent, and was privy to a decent amount of SHIELD's data - or at least he believed he was. He had no illusions about his position in the organization, fully aware that SHIELD went far and beyond his or even Agent Coulson's tasks. Projects that, if they were lucky enough, would never see the light of the day. To any organization affiliated with them, people like Fujikawa, Coulson and Hand were the only figureheads who could be in direct communication with them. Everyone else, although visible, was to maintain an air of anonymity.

So the agent understood that as one of the unofficial spokespeople, he was below a certain clearance level for the sake of the organization's integrity.

Still... _Level 9._

It was one thing to intrinsically know that the higher-ups were cooking up a storm, another to be told explicitly by said higher-up that it existed and he wasn't invited to the party.

Perhaps Yoshiro was getting soft, which was very unlike him.

Pushing his bubbling frustration aside, the agent poured through the MSS files (SHIELD not providing him access of their _own_ data banks) and, with the help of a few scientists from R&D working on the new Phaser and Dampener prototypes, tried to find any relation between the two phenomena.

So far, zilch.

While the researchers continued their exploration, Fujikawa re-ran the MSS agents' profiles once again, digging up anything potentially incriminating he could find on the off-chance that the Massacre of Hunan, as they coined it, was a ruse.

Before he knew it, it was early Friday morning, and Asano Keigo would be visiting them in a few hours to hopefully, stop being a pain in his ass for once and agree to train under them. Aside from having potential, Keigo already knew too much to be let lose, especially if he was going to be chased by more agents from secret services in department stores.

Third-fucking-floor. Christ.

The kid was still recovering, so Yoshiro felt a pang of guilt by asking so much from someone who was essentially a child. But his reservoir of morality was scarce as it was, and he needed all the leverage he could get to rope the boy in, especially before Urahara Kisuke got wind of it and decided to tear through SHIELD's main doors.

Also coffee, he needed lots of coffee.

* * *

Keigo got used to halving his pain medication uncannily fast. Wednesday was the shittiest he felt, and after a decent amount of sleep and hot soup, he was pretty okay to attend school on Thursday.

Which turned out to be three steps away from a full-blown disaster, what with his arm now visibly in a sling unlike on Monday, and his movements incredibly sluggish, despite his spirit-sensitive body healing somewhat faster than the average human.

Mizuiro was horrified - unsurprising based on their talk earlier in the week. He had all but dragged Keigo into a corner and _demanded_ what happened to him. Keigo feigned nonchalance tinged with his trademark pathetic pout and said that the self-defense group got a little rough.

"They're bullies man, it's what they do," he had explained as if he was used to being shoved around. Which he _was -_ some of his bruises were the result of Ichigo and Tatsuki's tempers, and not just limited to the Oshima gang. Mizuiro never used to care as much before, so Keigo didn't understand why his friend just couldn't quit doting the one time Keigo wanted to be left alone.

Kojima was apparently appalled at his casual response, immediately taking him to Ichigo on the terrace during lunch which then proceeded into a heated debate on whether or not they should teach those guys a lesson.

'Those guys' being unknown spies who essentially wanted to poach him for information on top-secret intelligence, but Keigo didn't mention that. He doubted it would stop Ichigo either way.

Still, to prevent the shockingly furious gang - now consisting of Kurosaki, Kojima, Sado and _Ishida, even what the hell -_ from gatecrashing his nonexistent self-defense training at a local gym in Tokyo, Keigo needed to placate them somehow. And he had no idea where to start.

Judging by how badly they took his previous explanations, saying stuff like _'I'm used to it'_ and _'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, am I right fellas?'_ would probably backfire, so Keigo had to _really_ amp up his... Keigo-ness for them to believe that he probably deserved it.

"I hit on the guy's girlfriend and he got pissed, okay?" he blurted out, trying his best to sound embarrassed - not all that difficult, considering his past failures at anything above platonic interactions.

It worked like a charm. The boys immediately stopped plotting and turned to him with expressions of shock and disgust. The familiarity of it was more than welcome.

"I- what?" Mizuiro sputtered, "Dude! I thought you and Ryo... _what?!_ "

Oh, that.

Shit.

How could Keigo forget about that? Ryo _just_ visited him yesterday. Then again, _she_ knew they weren't dating, and it was more of a friendly visit with a dash of conspiring behind SHIELD and Urahara's back.

Welp, in for a penny.

Ichigo's glare was now targeted at Keigo, which - while always slightly frightening, was a better alternative than blowing his entire cover over a shitty shoulder. He stomped towards Keigo and grabbed him by the collar, not hefting him up like he did with Oshima's errand boys, but still just as threatening. His eyes were ablaze with fury, jaw clenched like he was _really_ holding back bashing Keigo's face in.

"That's _sick_ , Asano," he growled, "No girl deserves to be treated like that. I thought you were better now, but you can't even respect your girlfriend? Tch, you don't deserve her," he spat maliciously. It was apparently a touchy subject for Kurosaki.

With a final push that jostled Keigo's shoulder hard enough for him to wince, he stalked away - huffing in anger, probably ratting him out to Arisawa or something. Mizuiro just looked disappointed, along with Sado. Both of them followed Ichigo back into the school hallways.

Ishida remained, looking at Keigo impassively. Keigo kept his sad, defensive pout firmly in place.

"She was hot! What was I supposed to do?" God, he sounded like _such_ a lecherous creep, _ew_. Even Past-Keigo wouldn't say something like that. But appearances needed to be kept, at the cost of friendships too.

"Is that so?" Ishida asked, pushing his glasses to the bridge of his nose. He narrowed his eyes and drifted his gaze back to Keigo's shoulder. "You should see my dad about that," with that, Ishida too walked away.

Keigo sighed and closed his eyes, leaning heavily against the wall.

"SHIELD better be fucking worth this and more," he said out loud. Yoruichi creeped out from one of the corners, tail swishing in intrigue.

"For what it's worth, I hope so too," she said.

On the bright side, Keigo thought hysterically, this was a rather simple solution to get Ichigo and Co. off his back. There would be no snooping if they weren't his friends in the first place right?

Except Ishida; fucker was probably onto him.

And Ryo.

Ugh, what a freaking mess.

On Friday Keigo skipped school, citing to Mizuho that he had booked an appointment with Ishida Ryuken to get his shoulder checked. His sister was also fed the same story as the rest of his (former?) friends. She was the one person he didn't want to anger too much; he had to _live_ with her everyday for shit's sake. But it happened and she was both angry and disappointed and refused to talk to him properly, only giving out one-worded replies to anything he said.

Which, also fair.

Ryo was the Good Girl of this story, and Keigo was a shithead. He was bound to be getting flack for 'breaking her heart'.

He understood, though it should have bothered him more that pretty much everyone he knew was boycotting him - maybe the entire school by next week - but those who knew the truth were the ones he needed to worry about. So - much to his own confusion, Keigo didn't really care what the rest of them thought.

Bigger fish to fry. His own life, for example.

He got to SHIELD office by himself, the address given to him by the agent with the dog on rotation around his apartment, and was taken to a marriage counselling firm's backdoor that, upon going further in, led to more SHIELD offices.

Man, how did they afford all this real estate so soon?

Penta-man was in one of the many offices that Keigo should definitely keep track of if he planned to do what he was going to do. He wore the same old two-piece attire he usually did, except the areas by his elbows were slightly more crinkled, the tie a little askew.

Did the guy pull an all-nighter or something?

Based on his bland expression, he probably did.

Or didn't. Who knew, really.

Goddamn spies.

"Mr Asano," Fujikawa started, professional as always. This time standing up from his chair to greet him with a handshake before settling back down again. "Please, take a seat."

Keigo complied, feeling an oscillating mix between nervousness and surety that he supposed his brain was trying its best to compensate with for the bravado he seemed to be lacking this week.

"So, have you made a decision?"

Keigo went through everything he discussed with Yoruichi the days before, freely talking in his apartment when the cat (human-cat, cat-human?) managed to find and destroy all the bugs placed in there. There were a ridiculous amount; Keigo thanked his stars he kept his mouth shut most of the time. They talked about the points he needed to bring up, his concerns, his rights - a _lawyer_ , which Yoruichi claimed she was happy to impersonate should the need be - all his data, his training regimen, his schedule, the works. No stone could be left upturned, seeing as this could be the most important decision Keigo would ever make in his entire life.

"Have you found out who was after me?" Keigo asked instead. Fujikawa leaned back, as if expecting the question.

"Unfortunately, not yet. We have set the best people available to us on it, and hopefully we can find out something about them soon."

"What _can_ you tell me about it then?" Keigo insisted. _Annoy your opponent into submitting,_ Yoruichi supplied in his mind, _It's surprisingly effective._

"That CCTV has no footage of them, so they are experienced in hiding from it. Employees in the mall were questioned; none of them saw anything of that description, or they may have," the agent added, "But didn't pay it too much mind. These people are experts, and we need to follow protocol while investigating something this sensitive."

Keigo nodded. So those guys were still at large then, damn.

"I want to discuss my contract if I do take up your offer, cross the t's, dot the i's, the whole shebang," he finally said. Here goes nothing, "A-and... I want a lawyer?"

Yoshiro may not have smiled, but he got close.

"Of course, Keigo," he drew out two large binders and pens from under his desk, "Let's begin by discussing your previous non-disclosure forms..."

* * *

So... Keigo was kind-of-sort-of a part of SHIELD.

Kind of.

The process took _hours_ to finalize, with people entering and leaving the room: an army of attorneys, Scientists A and B who worked with him previously, even Bando, whose eyes never left the lawyer as he explained his role in Keigo's previous association to them. Since he was still a minor, several clauses in the contracts could not be enforceable unless he renewed it when he turned 18, which was a relief. Fujikawa himself had to do a bunch of signing, acting as his pseudo-guardian in the event of extreme situations that put Keigo in a 'tight spot' - as they'd put it.

Intelligence contracts were a lot different than the ones they showed on TV, that was for sure. Keigo doesn't remember ever filling out so many forms back-to-back without parental supervision.

Yoruichi wasn't needed as his own personal attorney, Fujikawa made sure that consultants outside of SHIELD, but still within their circle of confidentiality were present to prevent any bias and reassure Keigo that he wasn't being tricked.

To summarize, Keigo was now an offsite trainee at SHIELD Academy of Operations under the guise of a graphic designing internship that allowed him to skip some days of school while cut short some other days - for the rest of the school-year at least. They made it sound awfully convenient and _just_ believable enough for a guy like him to score an internship when he was still rather low on the school's top 50 lists.

They also subtly warned him to bump his grade point average several notches up if he wanted to keep up with SHIELD training.

Keigo only gulped in response.

All in all, it was a very busy afternoon. And _very_ scary.

Once Keigo was done signing the final form, most attorneys packed up the paperwork and shook hands with him pleasantly, adding a polite "Welcome to SHIELD, Mr Asano" before they left the room. Fujikawa decided it was time to kick Keigo out, so he called in another one of the jackbooted thugs who wasn't Agent McBroody or the second guy but just as frightening and quiet to intimidate Keigo into following him wordlessly.

He was blindly led by the agent, his mind a blur of events. He tried his best to absorb the clusterfuck of data that was just thrown at him from all sides throughout the whole day. Keigo briefly registered that it was already evening, but his stomach wasn't growling in hunger, so he assumed he probably filled himself on the bowl of peanuts placed on the table the entire time. Which was well enough, he guessed.

Keigo figured he was being escorted out of the building but instead, realised belatedly that they were now further into a maze of newer corridors that finally ended him in a medical bay once again.

The agent stepped aside, ushering him in with a simple flick of his gaze that had him scrambling into the area. The same doctor he had visited earlier in the week was on her laptop, typing away. She looked up to find Keigo and gave him a warm smile.

"So... I hear congratulations are in order," she chuckled and motioned him towards one of the beds. _News travels fast at SHIELD,_ Keigo numbly thought. Keigo felt dumbfounded enough to not reply. Too much happened in a short span of time for him to completely register her words. He was overflowing with information and her congratulating him by unwrapping the bandages on his shoulder was one of those things that he supposed might as well happen; another input neuron fired onto his saturated, straining brain.

"Uh... t-thanks?"

She shook her head and gently began pressing different points on his shoulder to assess the damage remaining. It no longer hurt like Wednesday, but Keigo still shied away from her touch.

"Don't sound so unsure, kid. This is one of those things that forever changes your life," she said. Keigo only nodded, slowly taking in her words.

She was right, even after Keigo turned 18, he wouldn't be the same person he is now. A lot of things would change for him, drastically so - the people, the environment, the _entire world_ as he knew it. Everything would be twisted by his new SHIELD-lenses that would tell him exactly how fucked up people truly were.

Keigo wasn't sure he was ready for that change.

God, what was he _doing?_

The doctor, noticing the obvious rush of slow-building panic on his face backtracked, "Hey... hey! Come back to me, it's not all that bad alright?" she assured him, one of her hands on his shoulder, the other on the elbow. She slowly turned it to see how far it could stretch (not far at all). "Best case scenario, it's just paperwork and a lot of research. Kind of like being in school, except for the fact that you will be in peak physical condition, develop incredibly high cognitive thinking with specialisation in a whole bunch of cool stuff. So basically, you become a total badass on a good day."

Keigo smiled faintly at her attempt to make him feel better. It was a refreshing change from all those other agents being all stoic and generally drained of unicorn juice. She was sweet. But...

"And on the bad days?" he asked, voice small and hoarse. She paused in applying some weird goop medicine on his shoulder. Her smile dimmed, but she still looked at him kindly.

"On bad days... we take it one hour at a time. Or if that's too much, then a minute at a time. Gotta keep going, that's what we are here for-" there was something sad in her face, but she quickly recovered and cleared her throat, "-besides, _you_ don't start training for at least another two weeks. Physical therapy first, then, when your body is strong enough to handle strain again, they will start will the physical stuff. In the mean time, it's mostly coursework - high school 2.0, yeah?" she looked at him imploringly, not waiting for an answer as she re-wrapped his side and slid more medication into a bag. "Keep taking this twice a day, and no pressure on the shoulder, got it?"

Keigo nodded. Then,

"What's your name?"

The question seemed to have taken her aback, apparently. Keigo didn't know why, he was too tired to care.

"Dr Lynn," she replied.

"Huh... that's. Not- not Japanese?"

"No, it's not," she smiled, her dark, long hair swishing to one side, "Now get out of my office. And welcome to SHIELD, Keigo!" she called out as he left with Agent Aloof.

"Thanks, Dr Lynn!" he shouted back.

* * *

"You sure he won't be angry about this?" Keigo asked as they approached Urahara Shop. Yoruichi sat on his left shoulder, content with not walking. Keigo would have complained except naked or not, Yoruichi was somehow even more terrifying than an angry Kisuke.

"Oh he will," Yoruichi replied, licking a paw, "Except it was my idea, so if he gets mad at you, I'm gonna kick his ass."

"Why would he send you to me if you weren't gonna follow his instructions anyway?"

"Because I have a mind of my own, for one. And secondly, Kisuke is not nearly as good at multi-tasking as he believes he is. Having you under SHIELD will be one less thing to worry about, and he won't fuck up the rest of the things he has on his plate."

Keigo pouted, "I know I'm a burden, but you could at least not say it to my face,"

"It's not about being a burden, Keigo," she reasoned, "-it's practical, both for you and him. Neither of you trust SHIELD, but I don't see why SHIELD has reason to trust you guys either. Logically, it's a solution that makes sense. Kisuke isn't... good with kids, you may have noticed. With you around and without protection, he will distract himself from things that could potentially put a lot of people in danger - it's a pattern, with him. Even so, you didn't _have_ to go with this idea if you didn't really want to," Keigo could hear her smirking. Damn it, she was kinda right.

As they reached the open door of the shop, Yoruichi leaped from his shoulder and sauntered inside. "Wait here," she warned. Keigo obeyed emphatically.

"Keigo!"

It felt like a knock-off flashback from Sunday, the voice of a girl calling him from a distance. Keigo immediately tensed, panic rising in his gut, stuck somewhere between running into the shop and ready to defend himself as he decided to turn, fist clenched and raised to-

It was Ryo.

The breath left Keigo's chest in relief.

"Wh-what are you doing?" she motioned at his raised hand, bewildered. It looked particularly funny with the giant beanie she wore to cover nearly half of her face.

"Uh," he lowered his hand, "Hi?"

Ryo opened her mouth before her gaze flickered behind him and closed it again. Instead, she took him further away from the shop.

"So..." she started, once they were out of hearing distance, "Why exactly am I supposed to break up with you?"

Keigo sputtered, suddenly remembering the events from school.

"Right. I cheated on you by hitting on someone from self-defense class," he said as a matter-of-fact.

"I- really? They bought that?" she whispered, eyes darting back to the shop.

Keigo pointed at himself, "Pervert, remember?"

They fell silent again.

"So... we aren't supposed- we just don't talk anymore? Or..."

Keigo shrugged.

"I guess that's the plan. It keeps Ichigo and Co. off my back, and you no longer have to get into this mess." Ryo's expression flickered into something Keigo couldn't decipher.

"Oh..." she trailed off, looking down. Keigo assumed she would be a tad more relieved to hear that. It hasn't exactly been a joyride for her either. "But um- what about- what about the things you told me about in the letter? I can't-"

"Don't. Don't worry about that, it's not worth putting you under scrutiny. Just, let's forget about it okay? You're safe, and I think I may have temporarily dealt with the problem so..." he smiled, "'S all good."

Ryo sighed.

"But- I don't like the idea of you... you doing this by yourself. From what we discussed, it's cost you a _lot_ more than you made it out to be," she reasoned, looking at him somewhat sad. What the heck? He was giving her an out here and she wasn't freaking taking it. He owed her a _computer_ for god's sake! "You said you wanted an emergency exit in case things went south, and I- I have the contacts to make sure that you get out of it without, you know..." she motioned to his shoulder, "And... you can't like- you can't just _suddenly_ tell me this isn't important!"

She unknowingly raised her voice at the last part. Keigo cringed, but figured that if Kisuke decided to eavesdrop, that was the safest statement they could get away with without getting caught. Keigo hushed her nonetheless.

"I thought you didn't want to be a part of this!" he hissed.

"I don't!"

"Then why-"

"Okay, I do. But- can't you just... beg me to take you back or something? Then we can be together _and_ our friends won't interfere 'cause they'll still be mad at you!"

Keigo looked at her incredulously, "You know we aren't actually dating, right?"

" _Of course_ I do, idiot. I-" Ryo looked a him then, straight in the eyes, "This whole time... there's been this, this _world_ of basically _groundbreaking_ stuff that has been dangling right in front of me. For _months_ , even- monsters, shinigami, the whole- and. And I was too scared to take it you know? I didn't want any trouble; if it's not happening to me it's none of my business and all that.

"But I don't wanna do that anymore, Keigo. This- okay. Supernatural stuff, I get why humans like us shouldn't be privy to, there's already a system in place that mostly handles it well enough but. This shit is _real_ , _actual_ stuff that could directly impact a whole bunch of us- muggles."

Keigo knew what she meant. It would be difficult to resist secrets that have been within the human civilisation for _decades_ , perhaps longer. Every dark little corner of the best and worst of humanity untouched by common folk like them would be _right there_ , in bold lights, _daring_ them to pretend they don't see it, to pretend to _forget._ Who knows what messed up shit Keigo would find while working for SHIELD? Espionage, trafficking, assassinations. Freakin' sex scandals and conspiracy theories - they would be a step closer to discovering all of that. _Together._

And Ryo, despite her passive nature, has always been sharp eyed and thirsty for that knowledge. She wanted to _know,_ and Keigo got it. It was like turning away from a treasure chest with the key already in. All they had to do was twist it to find out if it contained gold or a mere imitation of it. Either way, both held a certain knowledge, data points to draw conclusions from.

"Also..." Ryo continued, unaware of Keigo's train of thought, "If something happens to you, I feel like that would be on me. Because I physically walked away from something that could have saved-" she choked on the sentence, unable to complete it, but she didn't have to.

Guilt was a _terrible_ enabler.

Keigo too, felt the same guilt lining his insides at all the things that could go wrong with her under the same spotlight as he was in. But this was her choice, and friend or not, Keigo could not begrudge her this - not with her conviction, with her sheer _competence_. He was pretty sure he wouldn't last very long if shit _did_ hit the fan and Ryo wasn't around to help him.

So, to put her out of her misery, Keigo did something his past-self would wholeheartedly approve of. He went on his knees and bowed down to her, ignoring her shriek of surprise.

"Kuneida Ryo, please take me back! I promise to always be your partner no matter what!"

It was the closest relationship he had to someone in cahoots. But he had to play it up, for Urahara and Yoruichi, who were _definitely_ watching from the shop. They were, after all, _dating_.

Ryo remained silent for a solid ten seconds, staring at him in disbelief.

Then, she stifled a laugh and smacked his shoulder.

" _Oh my God_ , get up, you dramatic little shit! Ugh, I regret this already."

Keigo straightened himself at her command, eyes twinkling ever so slightly, "No take-backs then?"

Ryo sighed, but her mouth was still turned up in the remnants of a smile, " _Fine_ , no take-backs."

"Good, because things just got _way_ more complicated."

* * *

 **A/N:** **check out ao3 for this fic! since I upload there faster.**

 **x**


	6. Montage Phase: Part 1

Keigo has always had a love-hate relationship with montage scenes in movies.

While they were basically an excuse to showcase the main hero shirtless and sweaty in an awe-inspiring soundtrack - which was awesome - they also seemed like a cop-out for character development. After watching it for the fifteenth time in yet another generic action film, it got old _real_ fast.

But if his own life was a movie (which, judging by the shit he got himself into on the daily, was not difficult to imagine), the current period he was in could only be classified as the montage phase.

Keigo spent the entire week after signing the contract nursing himself back to health with physical therapy with Dr Lynn, followed by staying at SHIELD office (calling it HQ was a stretch at this point, they hadn't shown him their base since the first time) for the rest of the day _actually studying history,_ and, ironically enough, doing graphic designing tutorials.

 _"No point of a cover if you've got nothing to show for it",_ Dr Lynn had said when he asked her, quite incredulously, why he was taking advanced Photoshop lessons. Well, SHIELD didn't use Photoshop, just their hi-tech version that rendered people's faces into _different people_ \- for instance. It was both fascinating and immensely horrifying, and Keigo wondered what else this software with no apparent name could do.

 _"Identification,"_ the good doctor chimed in, smiling sunnily like it wasn't weird at all to hand a teenager the tools that made a fake passport. Keigo only nodded uncertainly before going back to stretching.

The history notes he had to study upon were also mandatory - seeing as he was going to be tested on it like any other school would. SHIELD's reasoning was that since he was a part of the _academy,_ he may as well be treated as such. There were a bunch of other subjects he was supposed to take once his therapy was complete, not only limited to the physical training. They didn't specify exactly _what_ he would be learning, perhaps fully knowing that Keigo would attempt to back out if he knew.

So he did his time, reading up on the history of SHIELD - dated way before World War I, mind you - and Japan's role in it.

Which.

A lot more than Keigo had imagined. Yes, post the second world war the Japanese and USA came to an agreement, but the extent of which they were obligated to share their uh... _resources_ was appalling.

Also really _really_ fucked up.

Still, Keigo knew propaganda when he saw it; specifically in the form of incarceration camps _whatthefuck_ , so he took whatever SHIELD called 'their history' with a pinch of salt, deciding to fact-check some stuff when he got home. Then again, Japan weren't entirely innocent either - Keigo admitted to himself with difficulty. But Yoruichi warned him to be careful, and he wasn't going to make the same mistakes he did the first time he worked with them.

Keigo still felt like reading accounts of scientific experimentation could have been postponed to the next month or something.

Because supernatural experimentation was one thing, Keigo now knew exactly was Urahara had tried to achieve all those years ago, but on _humans_ \- well. That was a hard pill to swallow for anyone.

So yeah, apart from binge-studying SHIELD history that may or may not be complete based on how much he was allowed to know, 'graphic designing' classes and physiotherapy, Keigo was mostly free to do whatever he wanted.

Not that he had enough time to catch up to the rest of his life. He stayed at SHIELD a solid seven hours everyday, only to come back home and do his _actual_ school's homework and missed assignments. On the days he _did_ go to school, for however long or little, he was mostly left alone by the teachers; who were surprised enough to think he could have gotten an internship at some big-shot company, but didn't look a gift-horse in the mouth. Then there was the Supernatural Squad, who kept steeling cold glances at him when they thought he wasn't looking, but never once coming up to talk to him.

Arisawa looked like she wanted to _murder_ him most of the time, but he supposed Ryo's fake-concerned expressions stopped her.

It should have hurt more, but Keigo decided to push those emotions aside and _focus_ on what was in front of him.

Which also included occasionally meeting up with Ryo to discuss what her 'online friends' found on the weird incidents occurring State-side - as most of the guys were from there.

(And some in _Russia_ of all places that both Keigo and Ryo tabled for the sake of their sanity. _No one_ wanted to touch Russia with a mile long stick, no sir.)

Keigo didn't tell Ryo about SHIELD - he wasn't an idiot - but had her swear on her life to keep secret anything he _did_ tell her. It was mostly just cyber creep stuff he didn't understand as well as she did. Keigo couldn't quite fathom how he got lucky with the one friend he still had in this tornado of bullshit who just happened to be handy with computers, but he did his best learning as much as he could from her without completely nodding off in exhaustion.

He also had Ryo keep an alert on his assailants after giving her a proper description of their faces. If SHIELD could not figure them out, Keigo suspected neither could Ryo's network, but since he was already asking for so much, adding another task to the pile wouldn't make a difference when it came to paying his dues (something that was made abundantly clear early on when Ryo delivered him a message from her 'friends'; basically informing him that he was lucky they were already conspirsacy investigators, but when it was time, he owed them a pretty penny).

With the new routine in motion, Keigo could only wait for his shoulder to heal completely for more training, and await orders from Yoruichi, since Urahara was "apparently instructed to outsource his task list to people more equipped with dealing with kids", as she'd put it, smirk evident in her voice even though she was in fucking cat form most of the time.

Keigo momentarily forgot about hollows too, for a good while, until another attack - small as it may have been - at Karakura General Hospital had the west wing evacuate. Keigo was simply passing by when it happened. He got a good enough look at the hollow to realise it was small fry, and that some local shinigami would take care of it. He frankly couldn't give a crap if he tried.

(Turned out, Ishida Ryuken still had some spirit juice left in him to completely _obliterate_ the beast - which caught Keigo's eye immediately. It was one thing to abstractly know Ishida's father was a quincy, another to see the guy in action with his own two eyes. He looked absolutely bored, and even more graceful in action than Ishida Jr, which was a feat in itself. So Keigo made a quick note of his stance and spirit-bow or whatthefuckever he used, to give ideas to R&D when he had time. Although he doubted the amount of information would be much help, Keigo still fled when he saw _Ichigo's_ dad - of all people - come to the scene. What the hell was going on with those two?)

So far, Montage Phase (the name stuck and Keigo hated himself for it a little) was going as smoothly as it possibly could, and before he knew it, two weeks were up and he was introduced to the hell that was leg day.

Dr Lynn insisted that his upper body remained at rest for another fortnight, but after, well- "They're free real-estate" she grinned cheekily. Keigo shuddered.

His new trainer had a name, of course he did, and Keigo would remember it one day. But for the timebeing he was called Not-Bando, because he evidently was _Not Bando_ and Keigo had some strong feelings about that. This new guy didn't talk much, even to insult him or anything. Just went on with instructing him to do infinite number of squats until Keigo was whining and sweating and whining some more. And then _kept going._

The guy was a goddamn monster.

Still, despite his overly exaggerated complaints, Keigo kept training - not like he had a better choice - and eventually that too, became part of said routine.

Before he knew it, it had been over a month since he signed his contract with SHIELD and Keigo hadn't felt more physically drained in his entire life.

Neither Kisuke nor Fujikawa kept in touch with him since his official start at SHIELD. And there was a somewhat radio-silence from Yoruichi most days (she did monitor his progress everyday, but no world-changing solicited advice was given), which Keigo didn't take personally, simply because he did not have the brain capacity for it after the long hours he pulled at office and school.

It took another week for his sister to start talking to him properly again, and another two for his friend group to be okay around his presence. Keigo supposed that was a good thing. Maybe it was; maybe he'd look into it further when he had the time.

The plus side of the whole situation, Keigo thought one early spring Sunday, was that he was getting strong. Like, proper strong - easily the most fit he has ever been in his entire life, healing shoulder and all. While it wasn't necessarily a testament to his mental strength (Lord knew that was a littering of landmines itself), being able to outrun a winged hollow on your way back from school without breaking a sweat spread a rush of endorphins that kept Keigo going most days. He felt oddly in-tune with his body, more in control of his limbs and it probably showed, because two months into training, Not-Bando simply looked at him with a twitch that might not have been a smile but _certainly_ wasn't a frown, and said:

"I think you're ready for SHIELD training to officially start."

Which.

What.

He had to be joking right?

"No," Keigo said, "No the stuff I'm doing seems pretty official to me."

Not-Bando's not-smile widened, "Think of this as a little test to see whether you were still suitable for SHIELD."

Keigo shook his head, not even bothering to show his incredulity; his drama was lost on these guys. "Nope, nein. I'm not accepting that. I hear you saying things but I have no idea what they mean. Let me live my reality."

Not-Bando shrugged and started packing up. Keigo knew it, the guy was obviously kidding. Psh. Official Scmofficial. Keigo was going well, he was doing _fine._

"Wait! Don't just _leave!_ The hell have I been doing all this time?" he blurted out literally 5 seconds later. God- patience- fuck. He needed to work on that.

"Recuperating, for one, and participating in SHIELD's preliminary assessment to know if you were fit for the field agent role."

"Why wasn't I told of this before then? I've signed _way_ too many forms to not be aware of this stuff."

Not-Bando put his bag down, "That's because we didn't want it to influence your natural progression of learning. We wanted to grade your abilities without that looming on your head."

Keigo sputtered. That was bullshit, that was some grade-A bullshit right there. Here he was, busting his ass - practically _dying_ with his stupid new schedule and Macho-Man had the gall to tell him he wasn't even on training-wheels?

The surge of frustration bubbled up only for a second before washing away in defeat like every other emotion when it came to this godforsaken agency. _Of course_ they wouldn't tell him this, why wasn't he surprised- ugh.

"I-I still don't get it," Keigo croaked, "I read my contract like, thoroughly and I didn't see any mention of this in the clauses. I mean I knew... I knew I had more stuff to learn but- you- they should have told me."

Not-Bando gave a deliberate shrug, trying to act like he could relate. Asshole probably didn't even give a shit. "It's protocol buddy, can't do anything about that. Just think of it as an entrance exam. Yours was a special case, obviously, since you didn't have to go through the logical, psychometric and language tests, but it's a similar grading criteria. You're gonna have to talk to your supervisor about the details, but I did what I was meant to and sent a report on your progress."

"My supervisor?" Keigo latched on. There was also the report part - which he felt he should have started with, but it felt like this guy was not going to tell him anything substantial.

"Agent Fujikawa? Didn't he get you in?"

"Uh. Yeah I mean-"

"Good, contact him then. I don't make the rules." With that, his trainer picked his stuff back up and left the gym, leaving Keigo all alone to his thoughts.

"Wait! Did I pass?" he called out, "Did I at least pass? Hey!" No response, just like he'd thought.

* * *

The answers to his questions came the next Monday, in front of the marriage counselling reception desk where he was presented with an room number to one of the back offices. Keigo hesitantly followed the now familiar corridor, trying not to get distracted by the slight bustle. It didn't look like an emergency, but people were talking rapidly and power-walking past him so he had to assume something important was going down. The door in front of him was grey and had the numbers 235 written on them in block engravings, quite identical to the many others adjacent to it. He knocked once and waited.

And waited.

Keigo strained his ears to see if he could hear anything, but the background noise was too loud to make anything out of it. He instead gave the handle a jiggle - gasping a little when it pushed the door open. Keigo entered cautiously.

Nothing particularly terrifying greeted him, much to his relief. Just plain-old chairs on either side of a plain-old desk with a plain-old, very much running laptop on it.

Huh.

Keigo scanned the very tiny room again to see if he missed a person but found none. It was empty; he was alone in a SHIELD room.

Except the cameras on either corner of the space, obviously.

Keigo had stopped giving a crap about the cameras ever since he accidentally flashed the entire medbay in his scrubs months ago. He figured SHIELD to be smarter at keeping sensitive information somewhere that wasn't in a boring office on a shitty laptop.

He walked towards the desk and sat behind it. The screen was black, so Keigo moved the mouse around. It resulted in the log in screen of a protected account with an empty field for the password.

Oh, okay.

Welp, he tried.

Keigo decided to wait instead.

And gave up exactly 10 minutes after when no one showed.

It took him another 5 to figure out this was probably another one of their "preliminary assessments".

Ugh. He did _not_ sign up for this escape room bullshit.

Keigo shot a dirty look at the cameras, ensured his distaste was visible from all angles before casing the room for clues of what the hell he was supposed to do.

His crime-drama knowledge only got him so far, when none of the walls seemed to move and the drawers on the desk were locked shit with no keyhole or key in sight.

Laptop it was then.

After fucking around the log in page for some time, sticking his emergency flash-drive into one of the ports and hoping something to miraculously appear- nothing changed except for the password clue that only said _SSR._

Keigo knew SSR; it was essentially the birth of SHIELD back in America. It still told him nothing about how the fuck to log in. He had already tried twice, with variations of the organization's acronyms. He didn't want to risk getting it wrong again, in case he "failed".

Keigo sighed and wondered once again if spending time regretting his life choices would magically change everything.

He could always reboot the computer and work in safe mode - or whatever version of it this laptop presented him with. It was 8 am on a Monday and Keigo was all out of fucks to give.

Shrugging, he set on to do just that. It was slightly more unfamiliar, definitely nerve-wracking, with a cautious voice at the back of his head telling him to stop in case this _wasn't_ a test but just someone late to work. Keigo ignored that in favour of attempting to gain admin access multiple times, and failing almost always. The computer decided to restart every time he clicked on the 'Safe Mode' option. Whoever was watching him was having the time of their life at Keigo's expense.

Just when he was about to pull his hair out in frustration, the door to the office opened and in came Penta-Man in all his boring, diplomatic glory. He looked tired, but not as haggard as the last time Keigo had seen him, which was good, he supposed. Or maybe he was just better at hiding when things went to extra shit. It could both of those options and anywhere in between.

"Mr Asano, what are you doing?" the question was asked with utmost professionalism but Keigo could _feel_ the judgement radiating off him. He gave a petulant pout in return.

"Trying to pass your stupid test," he said and forcefully pressed the space bar. The sound of the keys were grating on his nerves now. "Ugh, fine. I give up. What's the password?"

Fujikawa stayed silent for 3 long seconds before shaking his head and taking a seat opposite him - uncaring that Keigo was essentially on the Boss Chair.

"There is no test. You've already passed, remember?" he spoke slowly, as if Keigo was having difficulty understanding basic words. In the mind state he was in, he probably was, but Fujikawa didn't have to say it that way.

"That's not what Not-Bando said yesterday,"

"I'm sorry, who?"

"My trainer," Keigo clarified, "He said that I will officially be starting my training soon, and that this whole spiel I went through for the past few months was just an entrance exam."

"That... is partially true yes. But your circumstances were different."

"Still, I didn't see it in the contract."

"Clause 25, section 8.1, B," Fujikawa supplied, bringing out a digital copy on his tablet in the form of a _hologram_. Wicked. "-reads that _'the candidate shall be subjected to periodic academic assessments at consistent time intervals in accordance with the agency's standard academic policies and subject to all federal, state, and municipal withholding requirements-'_ "

"Those referred to examination _after_ the courses, not _for_ them."

"They are all-inclusive. _And_ we didn't want to stress you out by telling you that you were being observed."

"Rubbish. You wanted a lab rat for your new training program or whatever," Keigo shot back, still frowning.

The agent sighed, "Keigo," Ah, there it was again, the subtle manipulation. Very spy of him, "-we are on the same team here. Following this protocol has helped us get the most competent candidates possible for years now. SHIELD only wants what is best for you."

 _SHIELD only wants what is best for them_ , Keigo didn't say, but hoped his expression conveyed his skepticism nonetheless.

"I brought you in today to congratulate you on passing your initial assessment," Fujikawa continued, drawing up the report that Not-Bando had sent. Keigo could barely make out some of the words before they were swiped away to see another list, "This is the list of all the subjects you will be taking for the next two and a half years before you start Basic. It's intense, yes, but I believe you will exceed our expectations within all of these areas. We will also set you up with an email and portal for all of your notes, interactions with some alumni with some other candidates around the world and a uniform for training."

Oh. Wow. Okay.

"Woah..."

"That was the reaction I was hoping for," Fujikawa allowed himself a small grin. A _grin._

" _Woah."_ Keigo said at that.

"You did good, Keigo. All the courses you have taken since January are in this report that I will send you later today, with feedback. In the mean time, I want to show you something," Fujikawa got up, ushering Keigo to do the same and together they slowly left the office once he hurriedly pulled the flash-drive out of the laptop. Fujikawa raised an eyebrow at that and Keigo raised his hand in surrender.

The corridors were still busy when they got out and took the elevator to the sub-basement level.

Was he being dragged to their headquarters again?

Oh he so _hoped_ that was a case. He would lose his _shit._

They left the lift and headed to the garage, where they passed through a dingy emergency exit, climbed some rickety stairs and stopped in front of an automated car elevator. It was out of order, judging by the giant stand that said OUT OF ORDER, and all the panels to the side were covered by a silver box. That didn't seem to phase the agent though. Fujikawa stood in front of it and, to nobody's surprise at this point, began fiddling with the box. Keigo couldn't make out exactly what he was doing, but it resulted in a brief flash of green LED and a robotic voice startling the shit out of him.

 _"Authorization confirmed. Temporary ID: Charlie, yankee, sex, eight, eight. Confirmed by security support."_

The elevator door swished open, and Fujikawa stepped around the sign to enter it. Keigo tried his best to ignore the slow building of nerves he always got when he was being escorted to unfamiliar places by SHIELD personnel. It had been months, and though he was mostly used to their surveillance, entering empty or abandoned areas with spies still gave him the hives.

Hairs on end, Keigo followed the man and let the door close in front of him. They descended lower into the ground, reminding Keigo of the first few times he visited SHIELD. _Please be secret HQ, please be secret HQ,_ he silently prayed. As much as he learned from this organization everyday, Keigo had to accept the constant feeling of confusion and loss at the whole logistics of it.

He turned to look at Penta-Man, who was passive as always. Not giving away a single emotion if he didn't want to. It didn't frustrate Keigo like it used to before, but the unsettling feeling never really went away. He still had no clue what Fujikawa had planned for him, apart from knowing that he had "passed" whatever they wanted him to pass. That might just have led to the worst possible consequence and Keigo wouldn't know until it was too late.

Still, they had been descending for way over a minute now and the silence was getting uncomfortable.

"So... my trainer said I might be suitable for field roles or something else-" Well, Keigo was paraphrasing, but whatever, "Where else would I be put into if I had failed?"

"You would be put through another series of assessments to see where you'd fit best," Fujikawa answered at once, "It would have taken a few more months, but ultimately if all failed, you would be put at admin."

The way he said it, straight-faced as it was, Keigo concluded that admin was dull, even for spies.

The elevator slowed to a stop, but the doors did not open.

"Hold tight now," Fujikawa said.

Keigo jumped when the carriage moved... _forward_ at a surprising speed. He clutched the railing lining the elevator, looking back at the agent appalled.

"Where... How fast... exactly?"

"Very."

Another 10 minutes of awkward quiet had Keigo trying to wrap his head around the fact that he was essentially in a jacked-up mini bullet train. He had even more questions; one could never run out of them when they worked in places like SHIELD, but held his tongue. Instead he felt around for the flash-drive in his pocket again, to ensure it was still there. Ryo had modified it to scrape any basic computer when plugged in, but Keigo wasn't sure if it worked without root access. He would have to check it when he got back home. Hopefully SHIELD overlooked his actions in the office room as nothing more than teenage nosiness.

This time when the carriage stopped, the doors did slide open. Fujikawa walked along the long, grey corridor with bright white lights with obvious familiarity. Keigo stumbled after him, turning to see if the carriage disappeared, but it was only a replica of the elevator at the old building. The door at the end of the corridor had another bunch of panels that needed authentication to open, he supposed.

Keigo blinked curiously when the agent scanned both his thumbs and forefingers on a scanner, followed by a retina check - bit much, if you asked him - and a voice activating code like the one he encountered before. The electronic voice piped up again.

 _"ID CY-688 confirmed. Welcome to Fujikawa Industries. Fujikawa Yoshiro and Asano Keigo."_

Wait what?

The door slid open.

" _Oh._ "


End file.
